Adjusting rear ride height using the eccentrics

[nfearn]

Hi all

First post on here for quite a while!

My S2 is about 8mm low on the offiside. My local indie (Autostrasse) seem to think it's the torsion bar that has sagged. Is this more typical than the coil springs at the front sagging on one side?

Anyway, if it is the torsion bar, I was wondering about adjusting it out using the eccentric on the trailing arm - I presume this is what it's for anyway?

Has anyone any experience of this? In particular, does a small adjustment here impact the rear geometry?

regards
Nick

 

[Diver944]

Hi Nick, long time no see.

You do see quite a few cars nowadays that are sitting lower at the back and I can only put that down to 'saggage' over the years. The eccentrics at the rear are there for exactly the reason of adjusting the ride height. I can't see that it would affect the geometry but the workshop manual covers it quite well. There's a copy on Ricks www.cannell.co.uk if you haven't got one

 

[sawood12]

Rear eccentrics are for fine adjustment of the ride height as TB re-indexing is quite course. I don't know how many splines there are on the end of the TB'sbut there is probably only say 30 - 40, so to index by one spline so you're probably looking at around 10 degree's ish per spline, which over the length of the trailing arm would translate to about 50mm of ride height which is tricky if you only want to lower by 25mm.

 

[nfearn]

Hiya

Paul - indeed - it's been a while. I hope you and the family are keeping well and that business is good for you.

The TB has splines on both ends and they can be moved in opposite directions, which gives fine adjustment down to 0.8 of a degree or so (40 splines on one end and 44 on the other). This is the ideal method for adjusting ride hight but it does of course involve dropping the axle, which I'd rather avoid.

In fact, I've been playing with the car this evening and it seems to me that lifting the front offside by about an inch causes the car to "roll" to to nearside by the same amount or thereabouts, whereas lifting the o/s rear by the same amount causes only the rear of the car to lift. I'm therefore inclined to think that it's the coil spring at the o/s front that has sagged rather than the o/s TB.

On a different topic, were you aware that Automec sell a set of copper (probably copper-nickel) fuel pipes to replace the steel originals that run front to rear? These are a bit of a pain to fit but are possibly better than using rubber hose to bridge the gap between the non-corroded parts of the originals (over the torsion bar tube)?

Next question - where can I buy the Werth (sp?) silver paint to re-finish the alloys?

regards
Nick

 

[pauly]

ORIGINAL: sawood12

Rear eccentrics are for fine adjustment of the ride height as TB re-indexing is quite course.  I don't know how many splines there are on the end of the TB'sbut there is probably only say 30 - 40, so to index by one spline so you're probably looking at around 10 degree's ish per spline, which over the length of the trailing arm would translate to about 50mm of ride height which is tricky if you only want to lower by 25mm. 

I think moving the TB one inner spline = 6.5mm.

 

[944 man]

40 splines and 44 splines, I believe: inner and outer (9° and 8° 10" / 8° 6/10ths).

 

[zcacogp]

Yes, but moving the bar in different directions at each end will allow finer movement. If the two ends are as you say (9deg and 8.6deg then you can get movement of 0.4deg by moving them differentially.)


Oli.