uncaptive springs

Young Robert 'o'

Young Robert 'o'

right after a bit of driving round with cut PI lowering springs things have been going well! however........ i jacked the car up the other day to change the rear shoes and noticed that with the wheels fully off the ground that the springs sit loose in the mounts, they wont fall out, just loose, so out of curiosity iv checked the fronts aswell and lo' and behold the fronts rattle around when the car is in the air so im guessing they've sagged a little over time and hard driving :eek:

Now
1) will this fail an mot?
2) is there a cheap fix
3) if not whats the cheapest fix

cheers guys!
 
MOT fail yes. You can get shorter rear shocks. Not sure on the fronts. How about actual lowering springs ?

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my front springs are tein 35mm lowering springs but i cut a coil off them, so theyre about 50mm. they still just about sit captive on monroe dampers (standard length)
the rears are 50mm cut standard springs. they fail the MOT, so i put the standard ones back on.

im looking at changing the rubbers on the rear dampers though to effectively shorten the damper. theres a rubber that acts as the damper seat on the underneath of the car. im going to replace this (about an inch thick) rubber with some polyurethane.

ive got a set of ARB droplink really hard polybushes, but my current micra runs without an ARB. ive sliced a couple of 3mm thick sections of the bush, and they go straight in as replacements for the rubber mount. will put polybushes on the top damper rubbe as well to improve stiffness.

the last resort is to slot the lower damper hole, until the spring seats properly. then you have to get some nice strong steel, drill a damper bolt sized hole in it and weld it onto the beam: damper holes further away, damper effectively shortened. :) will get some pics up i guess!
 
I think for keeping mr MOT man happy im going to get a pair of plates knocked up in nylon or polyprop just to pack the rear seats out for the mot, and for the front i'll get a couple of spacers turned that sit above the top spring seat but under the top mount, so effectively a sleeve that sits over the damper, then they can come back out after the mot is done
 
What bout fitting some short soft helper springs so during normal susp travel they're fully compressed and the main stiffer spring takes the weight of the car,
But during excessive droop such as lifting the car or launching over a hill, the main spring may have fully relaxed before the dampers top-out but the helper springs keep it snug throughout the damper travel?
 
You can take the rubber off the top of the shock dust cover to shorten the effectivr shock length by about 8mm
 

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