Fitted Protechs on a Griff or Chim?

[cavebloke]

If you've fitted Protech dampers on a Griff or Chim - did you have any problems with mounting the damper in the lower front wishbone?

It's a serious interference fit on mine and I can't get it lined up enough to slide the bolt in.

Anyone got any advice?

Cheers,

Simon

[DarkMatter]

I don't recall having any problems when fitting Protechs to my '96 Griff, but it was a few years ago.

Is it that the flanges are too tight to get the damper in, or is it the length of the damper causing the problem?

[Quinny]

cavebloke said:

If you've fitted Protech dampers on a Griff or Chim - did you have any problems with mounting the damper in the lower front wishbone?

It's a serious interference fit on mine and I can't get it lined up enough to slide the bolt in.

Anyone got any advice?

Cheers,

Simon

Just had a similar issue whilst fittin new Bilsteins on my Griff....... I got around it by tweaking open the lugs on the wishbone slightly, use a long thick screwdriver, to gently lever them apart, hardly anything but it does help.....

I also ran a file over the bottom shock bush... Again hardly touched it, but just enough the make it fit...

When you tighten the bolt it'll pull the lugs together anyway, so no harm in bending and filing to get a good fit...

[cavebloke]

The problem is that with the two flanges in place it's about 2mm too wide and once bullied in I'm struggling to align it all so I can slide the poorly accessible bolt in.

Simon

[Quinny]

cavebloke said:

The problem is that with the two flanges in place it's about 2mm too wide and once bullied in I'm struggling to align it all so I can slide the poorly accessible bolt in.

Simon

Mmmm 2mm is a lot.... Sounds like you're going to have to either swap out the bottom shock bush, or take a bit off each side if there's enough material....

[WinstonWolf]

I seem to remember putting the bolt and one spacer in then introducing the shock and other spacer although I could be wrong about that. I distinctly remember it being a tt of a job

[phazed]

Use a pair of adjustable to tweak the lugs open a tad, that will keep the lugs straight as you gently bend.

Run the nut up the threaded bolt, grind a 45 degree blunt point on each bolt, remove nut to clean up the thread and then fit.

You can roughly line up and tap through.

Use a lever to push the bolts through where awkward.

If you have a bench grinder, it's 10 minutes to do the lot.

[PeteGriff]

cavebloke said:

If you've fitted Protech dampers on a Griff or Chim - did you have any problems with mounting the damper in the lower front wishbone?

It's a serious interference fit on mine and I can't get it lined up enough to slide the bolt in.

Anyone got any advice?

Cheers,

Simon

Hi Simon, I have recently stripped out all 4 corners (wishbones away for strip and re powder coat). I have a set of new Protechs to fit. When removing the front shocks I released the top mount then removed the bottom wishbone with the shock still fitted, easy job then to remove shock on the bench (able to access bolt). I will reverse the process on refitting with new shocks: mount shock in bottom wishbone and torque up first, then fit wishbone to chassis, locate top shock mount, slide in bolt and torque up - simples! Regards, Pete

[cavebloke]

PeteGriff said:

Hi Simon, I have recently stripped out all 4 corners (wishbones away for strip and re powder coat). I have a set of new Protechs to fit. When removing the front shocks I released the top mount then removed the bottom wishbone with the shock still fitted, easy job then to remove shock on the bench (able to access bolt). I will reverse the process on refitting with new shocks: mount shock in bottom wishbone and torque up first, then fit wishbone to chassis, locate top shock mount, slide in bolt and torque up - simples! Regards, Pete

Thanks for all the responses.

Pete - in this case, refitting has not been the reverse of removal. I can't find a decent tool with which to separate the sides of the mount in the wishbone as they are quite robust - so this has been a right bugger of a job. Back in the garage tonight so hope I can resolve it then. In the end, I might just reduce the spacers Protech supplied to fit my wishbones.

[phazed]

Have you a large pair of adjustables?

[Quinny]

This may help

http://youtu.be/-XagYNTSCcA

[PeteGriff]

cavebloke said:

Thanks for all the responses.

Pete - in this case, refitting has not been the reverse of removal. I can't find a decent tool with which to separate the sides of the mount in the wishbone as they are quite robust - so this has been a right bugger of a job. Back in the garage tonight so hope I can resolve it then. In the end, I might just reduce the spacers Protech supplied to fit my wishbones.

Hi Simon, are you saying that the width of the Protech mounts are wider than the gap into which they need to go in the bottom wishbone or top chassis mount? Looking at my Protechs they came with a narrow bush/mount and two machined equal sized spacers. If they will not fit do not open up the wishbone, instead get the Protech spacers equally machined down (either ground or turned)! Regards, Pete

[phazed]

This problem is probably due to the jigging of the chassis lugs for the damper mounts.

My 95 car is fairly uniform but the 99 chim has a lot of variation in the width of the mounts.

I took my Monos of the 95 car which were a reasonable fit but struggled mounting them on the 99!

[cavebloke]

Once again - thanks for all the responses.

In the end I think it was partly the lower wishbone mount itself and partly the thick fresh powdercoat causing the problems. Thanks for the video Quinny it was a big help - made me much more confident to slightly manipulate the mount.

In the end I went for solving the problem with some threaded bar to give and extra couple of mm separation. The threaded bar gives you complete control so you can get exactly the degree of separation required. As soon as you fit the damper, the bolt brings the two sides back together again and they are now parallel with the damper mounted so I'm happy this was the correct approach.

Thanks again,

Simon