Buddy Club Race Spec Coilover Problems on Problems on Problems

[mpross]

Originally Posted by Shankenstein

I don't know enough about Buddy Club's design... but can you just wrap a chain wrench on the silver surface here (maybe with a thin towel to prevent damage), and tighten with an impact followed by a torque wrench?




If that doesn't work, can you lower the spring perch and move the spring down... then strap onto the shock shaft with a strap wrench or chain wrench (with padding)? Same process of impact + torque wrench.

I thought that may be the answer as well, but after I removed the tophat I realized that the silver that you see in that photo is just a metal sleeve that goes around the actual shaft, so you can grip that, but you're not actually gripping anything that's part of what the nut is threaded on to.

Your second idea may actually work though... I'm going to try that

[RBbugBITme]

Set your preload. Tighten the ish out of the jam nut. Then put a zip tie as tight as you can under the jam nut. It may not work with that fine pitch thread but its worth a try. Maybe put some blue loctite on the thread the jam nut will be covering after setting preload.

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[Estey]

Originally Posted by mpross

Except mine have been on for 60 miles and we seem to be in a similar boat lol...Actually when I removed the front right last weekend and removed the top hat from the coilover I thought the pillowball had seized because it didn't move at all without some decent force behind it. I actually thought I didn't know the design of the coilover for a few minutes because I thought it was solid.

Talked to BuddyClub USA last night, but the main guy, Albert, isn't really the "let me listen to your issue and lets's figure this out" type. He more just asks questions without listening to what your issue is and if there's one thing you don't know the answer to he tells you to check that and then call back... Tried to get around that by sending an email early this morning while providing the answers to everything he asked last night and semi-acting like this might be a new issue from someone he hadn't already talked to...just got a response "please call us when you can- thanks".... so great

Yeah their customer service is terrible I'll probably give them a call soon and tell them that my pillow ball won't stop making noise, and I'll stick to my guns. They definitely are not the friendliest, but I'm hoping they can offer a solution. So far I haven't found a solution on any other car forums other than new top hats :/

[Northwest86]

The fact that they set "preload" at 0 speaks greatly as to the quality and testing put into them. Let me guess. They use the bottom mount to set ride height?

[mpross]

Originally Posted by RBbugBITme

Set your preload. Tighten the ish out of the jam nut. Then put a zip tie as tight as you can under the jam nut. It may not work with that fine pitch thread but its worth a try. Maybe put some blue loctite on the thread the jam nut will be covering after setting preload.

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Yeah, I'm not sure the zip tie will be able to grab anything because of the threads, but like you said, worth a shot.

Originally Posted by Estey

Yeah their customer service is terrible I'll probably give them a call soon and tell them that my pillow ball won't stop making noise, and I'll stick to my guns. They definitely are not the friendliest, but I'm hoping they can offer a solution. So far I haven't found a solution on any other car forums other than new top hats :/

I've read about a lot of people using the stock top hats. Do you know if it's just a simple swap or do you have to modify it in some ways? Obviously a big downside to doing that is that you lose camber adjustment, but do you know if there are any other big downsides to doing this?

Originally Posted by Northwest86

The fact that they set "preload" at 0 speaks greatly as to the quality and testing put into them. Let me guess. They use the bottom mount to set ride height?

Yes sir you do. While I'm sure it doesn't sound like it in this thread, on the surface at least, they do seem like a quality product. The guy who helped me install them is used to building 1000+ hp drag/track cars, so he's seen some pretty high end set ups, and he was impressed with how they looked for a $1500 coilover. Just hoping this is all installer error and not something wrong with the coilovers themselves.

We will see though. Tomorrow morning I'm going through everything front and rear, so I'll make sure to post my findings

[Northwest86]

Using the bottom mount to adjust ride height puts them in a lower instantly in my mind. You set shock length so nothing can rub and adjust height with the spring seats. Functional, will never rub and if the suspension is designed well it has as much travel as you can possibly use.

[Alain]

Originally Posted by mpross

It doesn't look like anything has loosened up. I marked the threads and the lock rings with a sharpie this time so I can see visually if anything has shifted. It looks like it's just starting to make noise even though nothing has really changed

The rears pretty much are starting to sound like the fronts. It's the same sort of clunk in the same type of situation. I'm about to drive to work with the back seat down to get a little better listen, so I'll keep you posted about that.

check the lower control arm bolts. they may be loose. but while you are there check the lock rings also.

at one point, i thought everything was tight and come to find out that one of the lower control arm bolts wasn't tight. so that may be the issue.

another solution for the top nut, maybe go to a shop you know and use there air compressor and hit it at a high torque. eventually it'll be tight enough even though it is spinning.

[Alain]

Originally Posted by Northwest86

Using the bottom mount to adjust ride height puts them in a lower instantly in my mind. You set shock length so nothing can rub and adjust height with the spring seats. Functional, will never rub and if the suspension is designed well it has as much travel as you can possibly use.

how do these differ from



i don't understand what you mean "bottom mount to adjust ride height puts them in a lower 'category'"? are you trying to tell me that ohlins are at a lower category? please explain.

i have had these exact coilovers with no issues (at least nothing major)

[mpross]

Originally Posted by Alain

check the lower control arm bolts. they may be loose. but while you are there check the lock rings also.

at one point, i thought everything was tight and come to find out that one of the lower control arm bolts wasn't tight. so that may be the issue.

another solution for the top nut, maybe go to a shop you know and use there air compressor and hit it at a high torque. eventually it'll be tight enough even though it is spinning.

When I checked the rears about a week ago I looked at the LCAs too and they were still good. I'll definitely look again tomorrow morning when I go through everything again. I actually have an air compressor, so I won't need to take it anywhere for that. I've just tried not to use it because I've heard so many people advise against it. I did hit it with my dewalt 20v impact because it's not quite as powerful as an air impact. It definitely got them pretty tight. I also marked the nut and bolt to see if they were moving at all, and so far it hasn't budged, so I don't think the noise in the front is the top nut since it started off quiet and started making noise a couple days later without any movement from the top nuts.

[Alain]

Originally Posted by mpross

When I checked the rears about a week ago I looked at the LCAs too and they were still good. I'll definitely look again tomorrow morning when I go through everything again. I actually have an air compressor, so I won't need to take it anywhere for that. I've just tried not to use it because I've heard so many people advise against it. I did hit it with my dewalt 20v impact because it's not quite as powerful as an air impact. It definitely got them pretty tight. I also marked the nut and bolt to see if they were moving at all, and so far it hasn't budged, so I don't think the noise in the front is the top nut since it started off quiet and started making noise a couple days later without any movement from the top nuts.

are you running aftermarket sways and endlinks. i remember mine hitting the lower control arm and i had to put a washer to clear. (whitelines front and rear sways with their endlinks)

[Northwest86]

Originally Posted by Alain

i don't understand what you mean "bottom mount to adjust ride height puts them in a lower 'category'"? are you trying to tell me that ohlins are at a lower category? please explain

The bottom mount on most shocks is there to make slight adjustments when you change things/have different wheels etc but should not be used for general lowering. Thats what the spring seats should be used on. I don't know if the ohlins are any good honestly. But put it this way. No-one runs them here. In Australia it's a 90% MCA dominated market for a reason.

[mpross]

Does anyone know if there's some sort of coilover lock somewhere on the market? From reading around I've heard a lot of people with many different types of coilovers say that the lock ring has come loose on them before.

I would think someone would have made something to address this- something as simple as a metal clamp with a rubber inner lining so the threads wont be damaged would do the job nicely.

Even if the lock rings aren't the issue I'm having right now, I'd buy them just for peace of mind.

[mpross]

Originally Posted by Alain

are you running aftermarket sways and endlinks. i remember mine hitting the lower control arm and i had to put a washer to clear. (whitelines front and rear sways with their endlinks)

I've got stock sways front and rear, stock end links in the rear, and the end links that came with the coilovers in the front.

I'm not too concerned with the rear at this point. They have started making a bit of noise, but it almost never makes noise while driving around. It's mostly when going up the curb to enter the driveway or going slowly in particularly bumpy parking lots. I'd rather they made no noise at all obviously, so I am going to go over everything in the rear again, but my main concern is definitely the front.

The front end links are something has puzzled me a bit though. I know that they have hit the control arm at least a couple times because there was a mark on the control arm from them. I've since shortened them a bit more to get a little more clearance . The thing that really doesn't make sense to me is this:

At stock height with stock end links, the swaybar is neatly nestled in between the control arm and the tie rod. Obviously nothing hits on anything because the car was designed to work that way.

When you lower the car, the strut/spring length gets shorter (raises up higher in relation to the swaybar mount). So if you also use a shorter end link (which the one that came with these coilovers is, even at its longest setting), it causes the swaybar to raise up and due to the shape of the bar and where it is mounted to the chassis, also move forward, closer to the control arm.

It stands to reason that to keep the swaybar in as close the stock orientation/angle/location between tie rod and control arm, you would need a LONGER end link since the upper mount raises higher and higher the more you shorten the coilover and lower the car. Obviously there's a point when you would have to worry about hitting the tie rod, but it seems like you'd have to drop the car quite a bit before that would be an issue.

Does that make sense? Clearly I'm wrong because everyone either uses the shorter end links provided or cuts and welds their stock ones. I just don't understand why.

[Northwest86]

Originally Posted by mpross

Does anyone know if there's some sort of coilover lock somewhere on the market? From reading around I've heard a lot of people with many different types of coilovers say that the lock ring has come loose on them before.

So your two Locknuts are loosening even when they are locked together. They shouldn't really move. If you are having troubles though wind the bottom one down, add a little loctite (one of the lower strength ones that don't need heat to break) and snug it up. That should do the trick. That'd be what I try first. Easy to do and easy to clean up if it doesn't work.