Ok well this isn't exactly the kind of post I had wanted to post regarding my experience with the TEIN SS+ coilovers...but here it is anyways.

Installed TEIN SS+ coilovers, Ireland Engineering Adjustable Street/Race camber plates, IE lower control arms in the rear, and Alta adjustble endlinks fr/re back in Jan. Had the camber set to 0, strust set to 4 / 16 front and rear (with 16 being the stiffest). Have since changed to 1 on the fronts.

A few days after the install I had an issue with a clicking noise. With a little help from my friends ( that would be you guys ) I was able to pinpoint it as the top nut on the piston shaft backing out.

I only heard this on the left front so I proceeded to take it apart and lo and behold it was only hand tight. Put like 5 drops of blue loctite on the threads, backed the nut out a bit, and then spun it back down. Used one wrench to hold the shaft and a 19mm open ended wrench to tighten the nut (i.e. no power tools invovled at all).

A few weeks ago I started hearing it in the right front. Took it apart, it was loose, and did the same thing.

In between these two adjustments I went from a very low ride height that just cleared the tires to just slightly below stock. Off the top of my head I can only remember the # of turns on the coilovers - from 7 to 13. Car did not handle the same, obviously, but it was a much more comfortable ride.

Had an alignment done on Tuesday @ Mavis Discount Tre in preparation for track day. -2.0 in the front, -1.5 in the rear, stock caster/toe settings.

Drove the car from White Plains down to the Bronx to pick up a package @ Fedex that they couldn't deliver for some odd reason () and parked the car.

Picked up the package, pulled out, and heard a loud POP.

Pulled up to the light, heard another loud pop.

Turned left, going 3 mph and I heard an even louder SNAP, proceeded by clunk, clunk, clunk. Was barely able to pull over as the front right was slowly getting lower and lower.

Popped the hood and was able to wiggle the top of the piston shaft, still attached to the nut.

Jacked the car up immediately. Waited over 3 hours for the tow truck via Geico (I'm at 47K so I'm out of the MINI roadside) and towed it back home.

Here are some pics:

Top of IE plate



Bottom of IE plate



Shock Side View



Top view



On the flat bed



Dumped on my driveway



Ride height before when it was lower than present - kind of hard to compare to the pic on the flat bed but at least you get an idea.






I get into to work the next day and there's a flyer from Bavarian Auto. I was flipping through it nonchalantly and came across an article titled, ironically, " How easy is this? Do-it-yourself. DON'T OVE-TIGHTEN YOUR SHOCK NUTS" and proceeded to say the following:

Every year we receive a few phone calls from customers (or their technicans) whohave snapped off teh top of a shock rod by using an impact gun to tighten the top shock nuts. It should com as no surprise that this is not covered by any manufactuer's warranty...."

For all those out there that are using the IE plates - did you use one washer above the bearing and one below? I believe this may be one of the causes of my problems. When it was installed, two washers were used belo the bearing....

Secondly, I'd argue that the loosy-goosy strut nut caused the shock rod to have more play than normal, perhaps causing undue force on part of th rod against the edge of the bearing since it wasn't locked down by the nut. The rod snapped near the top of the bearing, but not right at the top with the nut flush with the top of the bearing.

Is it possible that I over-tightened it by hand? I wouldn't think that the loctite would have caused it to break.....

Could the alignment people have caused it to break? They weren't really sure of what they were doing and it's my fault for not pulling out of it at the first hint of doubt. I had to show them the 4 screws to loose the camber plate, as well as having to tell them to raise the car to loosen the load so that they could move the strut.

Is -2.0 degrees up front too agressive? I got to enjoy it for only about 10 minutes on the twisties between the alignment and the breakdown and man it was super grippy.

But, all in all, thank god nothing happened when I was on the highway or on a curve. If the strut had popped, I would have spun out, and could have injured/maimed/killed somebody and/or myself. I'm just grateful that it happened when I was going 3mph. I think I was super lucky there. With the tragedy at VT, having water damage to your basement (due to the noreaster) and having a shock rod snap isn't so bad.

I've already gotten a replacement from TEIN ($380 out of pocket) and will tackle it this weekend.

I still want to hear comments on what you think might have happened. Also, I want to prevent this from happening again. Obviously not going to make it to the track in this car (going, most likely, to take my wife's stock 06 MCS), but I need to get it ready for MOTD. God forbid anything happens on that road.

Any and all comments appreciated.

Thanks.

Shoe

 

After talking with you yesterday, i'm still kinda stumped.
I'm thinking since you were having issues with the nut on that strut, it may have been a combination of that being loose, lowering the car, and the alignment guys not knowing what they are doing.

I wasn't able to call Swift yesterday, i'll try today.

BTW, you have a metric crescent(adjustable) wrench. I gotta see that.

 

YEah probably a combination of everything.

And I meant open-ended (had a brain fart).

 

I'm just bustin' your nuts anyway.

Just got off the phone with Mike up at Swift, he's never heard of that happening with the Tein's. He's running them on his 300WHP STi, but his set came with it's own camber plates.

 

Just got off the phone with IE and Jeff seems to think it could be three things:

1) Over torquing of the nuts (I did 'em by hand but very well could have over done it)
2) Material defect in the shaft (possible but not likely)
3) Seizing of the bearing (not likely since it had plenty of free motion)

So......I've got to take apart the rest of the suspension to see if there are any signs of stress on the shaft.

 

bad tempering of the shaft, not as strong as it should be, or someone overtorqued the nuts. The only real way to tell is get failure analysis on the parts, and that probably costs more than replacing the units. Labs can test for hardness of the shaft and crystallization of the metal.

Just be thankfull it didn't happen on a bump on the freeway! who knows what a front wheel would have done then.

Matt

 

Quick note before I got to bed - I received the replacement unit today and compared the two. Basically the old one broke off RIGHT where the threads started and I mean exactly right there..... I'll post pictures over the weekend.

 

that's probably the weakest part.....

Matt

 

On another note, if you look at the top of the camber plate, you can see that the piston shaft (top part) is making a groove into the side of the plate. Now, I understand that the bearing is to allow the shaft to move slightly, but perhaps it's moving too much?

I'll have a chat with IE later on today about it.

Spent the weekend putting the replacement in. Finished yestrday and took it for a short test drive and it was fine (no noise).

Drove this morning the train station and I could hear clicking. I suspect it's the piston shaft hitting the side of groove on the top plate.... I'm going to test this theory later and try to cut a piece of rubber to slip between the piston shaft and the edge of the plate to see if the noise disappears.... This movement, btw, destroys the friggin threads on the piston shaft, mking it impossible to remove the top nut without clamping down on the rod from below (running the risk of damaging it of course).

Hm.

 

Ok so I kind of think I know what it is. Evidently the shock rod is quite a bit longer than stock shocks, or PSS9 's or Konis.

The bearing in the IE plate allows the shaft to move and the problem is that the TEIN rod is hitting up against the cutout in the black upper part of the IE plate.

The area is kind of carved out and shows a bit of wear. It also destroyed the friggin threads on the TEIN rod which will basically make it impossible for me to remove the top nut unless I use a tremendous amount of force and clamp the actual rod shaft.

I think this is the cause of the clicking sounds as well. Perhaps I had over-torque the topped nut as well (since it was ridiculously loose) in an effort to prevent the clicking..which may have caused the binding of the bearing in the IE plate...I'm still not 100% sure.....

Whudduya think Dr. O?