GAZ Gold Shocks for the S

GAZ Gold Shocks for the S

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Discussion

phillpot

17,105 posts

182 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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TurboTony said:
Do not buy stainless bolts for these applications as they are not suitable and can shear under load.
Stainless is not considered suitable for high shock (no pun intended) applications like suspension mountings. Is there enough force there to snap what is effectively a 1/2" bar of stainless steel? I wonder, but better safe than sorry, but you can use nice stainless steel "Nylok" nuts smile


greymrj

3,316 posts

203 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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I think I am just going to confirm other advice but here goes. It is technically easy to fit the spring/damper units. A good local mechanic can do this for you and may welcome something a little different. On a ramp the job is a doddle. The Gaz shocks do not need bushes, they are complete. Unless they are damaged, reuse the original bolts, unless you know what you are doing that would be safer.
I am one of the many people not convinced by polybushes. OK for track use but not as compliant for the road. The originals are often still in good condition after 25 years and they do reduce stock transmission. Adrien Venn knows more about TVR suspension than the rest of us will ever know and he would strongly recommend you do NOT change the rear trailing arm bushes to poly, he is already having to replace polybushes that have failed, and failed badly. To the best of my knowledge no sportscar manufacturer fits polybushes as standard. Do not fit stainless bolts to brake or suspension or other stressed components unless you know and understand the issues involved.

It is setting the new suspension to get it exactly right for you and your car which takes expertise. Not sure if the Gaz golds come with the special C spanner or not? The instructions with my units plus the info in the WIKI made it pretty easy to set mine approx right but it did take some trial and error afterwards to get the best settings. It was far easier to set the ride heights with the car on a 4 post ramp, if your local garage is run by a car enthusiast he might well welcome doing it for you. If you sort it that way then remember to ensure there is at least your weight (sacks of spuds!) on the drivers seat before setting the static heights.

All this is straightforward work for a mechanic. Many local garages have an enthusiast who would love to do this, more interesting than changing bits on yet another Focus. Go and ask, the guy in my village loves the few 'interesting' cars he gets in and it all helps when it comes to MOT if it is a car he has taken an interest in. He takes an interest in mine even if he only does the MOT and gas analysis work for me. You can build up a relationship with a local guy which comes in really handy when you have a sudden problem.

greyhulk

Original Poster:

989 posts

105 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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"You 'S' warriors are good... Real good" biggrin

Right after all the advice I'm going to check the bushes first when I get the car back (should be fine I'd imagine)

Use the original bolts if there ok, if not order some new ones & avoid stainless steel, would 'Bright Zinc Plated to BS 3382, (High Tensile Grade ’S’) be ok? from namrick.co.uk

And with turbotony's help fit the GAZ golds let them settle then take them to specialist for the ol geo tweaking


Edited by greyhulk on Thursday 26th November 09:40

TVRees

1,080 posts

111 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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Maybe you already have some newer front suspension bushes fitted. It's certainly worth checking.
If the original bolts are OK, clean them up a bit and re-use them (I had mine re-plated), as phillpot says, with some new stainless nylock nuts. Original bolts are SAE Grade 5, metric 8.8 grade steel.

mk1fan

10,509 posts

224 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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RT Racing sell complete packs of suitable fixings. Call direct or check their evilbay store. Stainless washers should be fine too.

greyhulk

Original Poster:

989 posts

105 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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TVRees said:
Maybe you already have some newer front suspension bushes fitted. It's certainly worth checking.
If the original bolts are OK, clean them up a bit and re-use them (I had mine re-plated), as phillpot says, with some new stainless nylock nuts. Original bolts are SAE Grade 5, metric 8.8 grade steel.
thanks found all the ones i need on evilbay, 8.8 grade zinc, stainless washers an nuts too.

mk1fan said:
RT Racing sell complete packs of suitable fixings. Call direct or check their evilbay store. Stainless washers should be fine too.
cheers pal, just had a look at there listing for the shocks, makes life abit simpler, not sure if it comes with stainless washers & nuts tho..


Edited by greyhulk on Thursday 26th November 12:40

mk1fan

10,509 posts

224 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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No they don't.

They do various kits including one that has the suspension and the wishbones. I bought that kit and will swap out the washers and nuts. I'd rather spend an hour working on the car than searching for bolts.

jwigglesworth

400 posts

137 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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I had my shocks replaced with Gaz several years ago by the local garage chap I had been using for some time. 2 years ago I took it to Matt Smith to service/do outriggers/etc and he set the suspension up properly. The difference was astounding so my advice would be to give it to somebody who really knows what they are doing be it an independent like Matt or one of the expert Forum members rather than your local chap (however good he may be) if he hasn't got TVR experience. HTH, Jeremy

Kitchski

6,514 posts

230 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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Just to give you some tips (I've fitted GGPros to quite a few S', including my own S1)

Easy to do yourself, yes. If you're purely swapping damper for damper then it's two bolts per unit, and the only grief you'll get is if any of the bolts have rusted into the metal sleeve inside the bush on the original. If that happens, an angle grinder is your friend, though it makes things more interesting.

Hints I'd give:

  • Don't rely on measurements from the corners of the outriggers to the ground to set a car up. I do lots of S chassis' at work, and I can tell you they're never symmetrical! By all means, use measurements taken before with the old dampers as a comparison to the new ones, but don't try setting the car up with them. For that you need to get the height roughly where you want it, then get it measured with a corner-weighter, and adjusted from there. I was only about 5kg out on the nearside corner on mine, not bad for a guess, but then I get a fair bit of practice at it! If you want a line in the sand to start from, measure the distance on the threads of the height adjuster, and go from there.
  • If you're going to the trouble of pulling the dampers off, then unless your wishbones are already mint, pull them off and give them some love. They're not getting any easier to find, and prevention is better than cure when it comes to rust. Pull the old bushes out, get the arms shot or bead blasted, paint them with something decent and then fit some poly bushes (I use Powerflex as a personal preference, though they can be an ahole to fit).
  • Same goes for upper and lower balljoints. Unless they're already as tight as a nun's chuff, think about doing those. And if you want real attention to detail, do the wheel bearings too: You don't want to have to crack off your new balljoints a year later because you fail an MoT on a knackered bearing.
  • Belt and braces: Speak to Neil at ML Performance and get some of his poly bush/balljointed droplinks. They work a treat.
  • Rear trailing arm can be a nightmare to remove if the bolts are rusted to the bushes, so one line of thinking is to leave those and come back another time, as removing the arms to apply the same process as you did to the front is harder, due to having to remove all the brakes, hub bearing etc. On the flipside, the rear trailing arms are more likely to rot out, so it almost makes more sense to do those than the front wishbones. Ideally, you'd do both, as prevention is better than cure, and if they go too far you end up spending much more in the long run, and have to bring it all to companies like mine (and I'm snowed under, I don't need the work!)
  • Rear trailing arm bushes - slightly more interesting. I still use Powerflex here, and removing the old bushes is the hard bit. However, with some cars the Powerflex bushes don't fit brilliantly, and the top hat section gets pinched. It doesn't affect the operation of them, but it might wear them out prematurely. Not the end of the world, as they're easy to remove and replace, and the bolts shouldn't rust in as the spacers used are stainless. They still have the advantage over the silent block types of having no restriction to rotation, though don't let anyone tell you they're firmer on a TVR than the original rubber, because if anything they're actually slightly softer - my S1 rides BETTER with poly bushes laugh Still handles really well though.
  • Sometimes the spacers supplied with the GGPros are slightly too fat for the eyelet you're trying to press them into. If that's the case, very carefully linish (or get someone to do it) the leading edge down slightly until they're a good fit. If you force them in, you can damage them and the chassis. You're bound to chip some chassis paint off fitting these, but stick some grease in there and the water won't ingress dramatically.
Nearly £400 on one hand seems quite steep, but on the other hand I sympathise, being that I do the same thing for a living. In theory, if all went well I could do a whole car in 1.5hours, so at Southways that's £81, plus £100 or whatever at a decent geo centre as we don't have the facilities. However, if I told a customer it was going to be £80 labour, and then anything got in the way (rusted threads, seized bolts, issues with the product etc) that could easily double or treble the time taken, you're better off assuming you're going to hit snags, quote 4-5 hours and then if anything does go wrong (and on old cars, it often does) you don't need to sting the customer any more. And if it goes quicker, you say "Good news - it's cost less than we anticipated!" Well, I do, maybe not everyone does, but I've got more of a conscience!


v8s4me

7,234 posts

218 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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I did this job just over a year ago. Quite easy, even without the benefit of a ramp. The only real problem was the tight gap between the top of the rear damper mounts and the body making getting the nuts on/off a bit of a pig. One of the bacensoredrd nuts took a whole hour to wiggle back in and onto the end of the bolt! (Richard's point above) That was longer than it took to do the whole of the front end on just one bacensoredrd nut!

Are the top mounts different on your car (mine is a V8S)? You also just need to check that the bloke who assembled the car put the top bolts in the right way around, ie the nut on the inside. This is incredibly rare, there has been only one thread on this that I can remember in the last 10 years, and if you have a lot of room either side of your top mount that might not and be a problem anyway. If the threads on the bolts are OK you just need new nylock nuts. Good luck thumbup

Edited by v8s4me on Thursday 26th November 14:24

mk1fan

10,509 posts

224 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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On the fronts I undid the nuts. Then used a scissor jack under the end of the shock to take the tension out of the unit. Then removed the bottom bolt. Undid the jack. Finally, removed the top bolt. Re-fitting was the reverse to get the bolts in.

The rears gave me no real issues. Mangaged to get the spanners on to the nuts quite easily. Then leant on the trailing arm to un-tension the shock and pulled the bottom bolt out. The Gaz Golds are a more compact unit so there's more space around the top of it to get the spanners in.

greymrj

3,316 posts

203 months

Wednesday 17th February 2016
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Always prepared to give credit where it is due. I have Gaz classics fitted on mine and the difference has been enormous, now a totally different and much more enjoyable car. When prepping the car for the MOT I noticed a slight oil leak had started on one unit. I spoke to Gazmatic about it and the aftersales service was outstanding. I sent the old unit to them and TWO days later the replacement unit is back with me.
That kind of service is very reassuring and worth noting.clap

(Technical note: the Gas Classics are not rose jointed but do come with new bonded 'rubber' inserts and steel tube liners of the correct length. They are very straightforward to fit. As with all bonded rubber joints it is advisable to tighten the mounting bolts fully when the unit is at normal ride height rather than in the no load position.)

HvdWeerden

1,736 posts

199 months

Wednesday 17th February 2016
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greymrj said:
When prepping the car for the MOT I noticed a slight oil leak had started on one unit.
The fact that they leak after a short while is not so reassuring for the build quality in general...
Mine also leaked and 1 spring was rusty, I sold them on and bought another brand.


Edited by HvdWeerden on Wednesday 17th February 11:51

greyhulk

Original Poster:

989 posts

105 months

Wednesday 17th February 2016
quotequote all
greymrj said:
Always prepared to give credit where it is due. I have Gaz classics fitted on mine and the difference has been enormous, now a totally different and much more enjoyable car. When prepping the car for the MOT I noticed a slight oil leak had started on one unit. I spoke to Gazmatic about it and the aftersales service was outstanding. I sent the old unit to them and TWO days later the replacement unit is back with me.
That kind of service is very reassuring and worth noting.clap

(Technical note: the Gas Classics are not rose jointed but do come with new bonded 'rubber' inserts and steel tube liners of the correct length. They are very straightforward to fit. As with all bonded rubber joints it is advisable to tighten the mounting bolts fully when the unit is at normal ride height rather than in the no load position.)
Yep i shall also vouch for the gaz golds, made such a difference to my 'S'! (Had no issues with any leaks, as of yet..)

Kitchski

6,514 posts

230 months

Wednesday 17th February 2016
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I've fitted them to a number of S' and maintain customers cars which already have them fitted. I've never actually had one fail before. The only failed damper I've had was an AVO, and it didn't look very old (though that doesn't always tell the whole story).

I rate them pretty highly, personally.