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General BOOM!!! Thats a front spring gone.

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General BOOM!!! Thats a front spring gone.

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ivantate

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Parked in the garage
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Looks like the cold weather has got to our springs and at 80mph on the M1 the front nearside snapped and although the sharp edge was pointing away from the tyre it rubbed through a nearly new winter tyre.
Just one of those things really that can happen any time on a older car. 2006 car with 54000 miles and an MOT 2 weeks ago (only seem to check the rear springs for rot in the spring holders).

Thought we were prepared, new battery, 4 winter tyres, full concentration screenwash, shovel in the boot but there is always something to catch you out. Couldnt stop it rubbing on the spacesaver but made it to woodall services. Lucky as there was 3 hour wait and with a 2 year old in the car it would have been a long 3 hours.

There was an AA guy in the carpark but he was out of his area so couldnt help at all. The missus then didnt have relay membership but finally with that sorted and managing to convince them they needed a truck as they werent going to fix it with the tools in the back of a van (so dont send one for an inspection first) we were sorted. Good excuse to eat some KFC for the first time in years.

Now theres an inch of snow out there but have got the bottom of the strut off, just working out the top. Looks like the big plastic cover infront of the screen has to come off but still wont give great access.

Typically the winter tyred hatchback is off the road now the snow comes!!!
 
thats not good lucky it wasnt worse though, ours passed its mot yesterday, think i best look out for some new springs too then, i got some fk ones for my croma made car lower by about 3cm but a whole set was cheaper than a pair from dealers.

always change in pairs dont just fit 1 new one

edit oh yeah T14086 told me i should have started started spraying top nut with wd40 from when we bought it but i forgot :eek:
 
Last edited:
It was a bit of a task.....

Left the bonnet on but it would be easier off, especially if doing the drivers side and the wiper motor has to come out. The caps and nuts looked rusty enough to give plenty of trouble but gave it a spray of ACF50 and the top nut came off quite easily. Easy enough to use a half pushed on ring spanner instead of having to grind flats onto a socket to get some proper torque on it.

So, got it in the vice with a big spanner (27mm i think) on the nut holding the spring top plate and managed to round the allen fitting in the end of the shock shaft. With a bit of hindsight this might have been avoidable but it was fairly rotten. Also my allen key socket was about 3mm short of bottoming out so using an allen key and tube may have saved it too.

After trying most things to save the day, holding the shaft under the bump stop area, over size allen keys, torx, etc.... I used a stud extractor but this do or die finished of the thread as predicted.

So with about 8hours till I was due to fly out to work for the week and a number of phone conferences to join that day I found a breakers with a strut within 1/2 an hour of home. £45 later I thought all my troubles were over, especially as I even ran the nut up and down the threads to make sure it went on.
After much grunting and sweating and cutting down of my spring clamps I eventually removed the wheel arch liner. Still not plain sailing as these springs seems to be about twice as long as they need to be and on first fit it came off the bottom plate and I had to get it all back off again to reset it. Desperate times called for desperate measures which involed 90% there with spring clamps and some bottle jack assistance to get the last little bit. Involved having the steering at the perfect angle and the jack just off vertical so probably more dangerous than it sounds.
Anyway it drives fine other than forgetting to attach the windscreen washer hose in my hurry to get the boy to bed, sort the baby sitter out and do the 2.5hr trip to stansted.

So, I am now being intimidated by the 2 new front springs sat in the garage, knowing full well that 1 of them will be hard and the other may be impossible. But it will have to be done.

Cant wait......


Basically, get some protection and lube on those nuts asap and curse fiat for putting them under the corners of the bonnet when water can drip on them.

Also, nice to see some tougher top mounts that the pandas and puntos get.
 
T14086 said:
Top nut is a swine as it rusts solid, good luck (y)
Click to expand...

Helped youngest do the front shocks on his & they were well and truly rusted in. Tried the usual of hitting the spanner hard/sharp in the wrong direction but that did nothing.
Used the top & neck of a bottle as a cone & a hot glue gun to fix it to the top of the shock then poured in some penetrating oil & left it overnight.
With the trolley jack pressing hard under the shock I managed to get the nut off. had to buy a new socket set. Could only find what I wanted in Halfords The ratchet handle fits on the outside of the socket rather than the normal square drive) - they gurantee it not to break :D (in normal use) - I explained what I was going to do & it would require a lot of force & he said it was ok.
So, with the correct socket in place, the ratchet handle attached, a decent torx bit inserted and 3ft of scaffold pole over the ratchet handle:devil: the nut moved (still took some force though) - but kudos to halfords, their socket withstood the immense stress I subjected it to (y).
Gave youngest the socket set as a b'day pressie - but he's too scared to show the guys at work as they'll rip him summat chronic (apprentice mech)
 
Was it the vortex set? i saw those but at £60 I thought the impact socket with flats ground on would be more cost effective. They do look good though and will keep an eye out for any offers.

I get most my tools from Halfords Professional range as it is good kit in good boxes and I am not using it every day. Then whatever I have to go and buy in a hurry on a sunday matches too!! Haven't broken any of it yet and at times there has been some fairly big thwacks and long tubes used.
 
Hi to all
yesterday same boom :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: with my idea, 116000km. costs for repair 400 Swiss francs.
 
BOOM that's my front nearside gone. Went for a drive a week ago in the last of the snow and ice and parked the car on the drive on the Sunday. I didn't use it until Wednesday when I was going to take my nephew and niece out and wondered why it was stubborn on the driveway. I thought a brake had siezed but my wife then spotted the nearside tyre was totally flat. As the tyre was right against the fence I drove the car ultra-slowly forward and turned it away to give me more space. After about 6 feet of movement I heard something go and felt it through the steering wheel. I looked under and saw about 300 degrees of the bottom on the spring lying on the ground with a razor sharp edge to it. My amateur CSI investigation of the metal showed about 0.5mm of rust and then a clean break straight through. There must have been a hairline crack for sometime. Unlike Ivantate who was doing 80mph I was virtually stationary! The sharp edge was exactly in line with the tyre and so destroyed an almost brand new Firestone:mad:

As a side note for about the last ten months both donut shaped top plates when viewed from under the bonnet have been out of place - they had moved back and you could see under the front of them.

So, today my father in law set about replacing the spring. We had thought the top plates were called top suspension mounts so we had ordered two of them (to do both sides). Turns out that they are not - what we got were the rubber part that goes under the wheel arch which once we got the unit out turned out to look like new. The car has 32,000 miles on it - two years of its life was in sunny Spain so a bit odd that the spring was so poor.

We got the top nut off which did indeed look decidedly rusty and then removed the whole unit. Tomorrow we will disassemble the top part to pop the spring on. We have spring compressors so let's see how it goes. BTW - taking the bonnet off is incredibly easy:)
We then took the scuttle board off and removed the wiper motor as well.
 
Glad to say they my father in law did a brilliant job and I now have two new springs, and while we were at it a new cambelt and tensioner and new alternator belt, and a full service. Hopefully it'll go smoothly for others in the same position.
 
Boom!! There went my SECOND front spring. 3 years and one week/6,000 miles after the first one went.

Fortunately, it happened on my driveway because it blew a 6 inch split in the inside of the tyre wall. My wife and our baby had just returned from collecting our 6 year old from school.

Disgraceful material/casting/whatever quality.
 
Nodfiat said:
Boom!! There went my SECOND front spring. 3 years and one week/6,000 miles after the first one went.
Click to expand...

Springs do break its not uncommon however 3 years is not what you might call longevity, was that first replacement a good quality part from a well known brand or a cheap replacement done at a back street garage ?
 
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