My Tolly1.8T Sport Toy!!!!! - Sold

[Matt-V5-Duffy]

The coilovers are pretty easy to fit, I put a set of Joms on my Tolly a few weeks ago. The drivers side is toughest, so fit the spring compressors upside down and tighten them through the topmount hole otherwise the threaded bars on the compressors will foul the inside of the suspension turret stopping it from being compressed enough to come out. Fitting the new unit back in is easy though as its shorter than the stock unit so it just slides in

 

[S3 AKR]

Cheers fella!! How long did it take you to do it all ? Did the shocks come away from the bottom end OK and the new ones fit well (and did you use a spreader) ?

 

[Matt-V5-Duffy]

Took me about 3 hours and several cups of tea to do front and rear, but I'm used to fettling with cars. I used a spreader to open up the hubs so they slid out nice and easy.
The rears are easiest by a long way so I'd start there

 

[S3 AKR]

Started fitting the JOM's today!!! What a PITA....

Started with the drivers side, front wheel. Got the drop link disconnected OK. Got the bolt on the hub out OK. Got the top undone with no issues (I have an impact wrench - cheap electric thing from MachineMart). So far so good then......... erm.. no!!

It took what seemed a lifetime to get the bottom end out of the hub. Eventually I managed to spread the hub with the use of a 1/4 inch drive inserted and rotated just 45 degrees to get just enough of a spread to loosen off the grip on the OEM strut. There is no room to get anything much in there.

Next issue - I could not get the wishbone to drop low enough to get the strut out of the hub - the strut was simply too tall. To cut a very long story short you can not get the compressors onto the springs and then wind them in enough to reduce the strut length as there isn't room at the top for the compressors to wind in enough. So, I jacked the wishbone up high to compress the spring, then attached the spring compressors finger tight as the space was so restrictive I had to attach them with the hexagon end at the top and turn the thread by hand from the bottom to get some grip on the spring before lowering the wishbone very slowly and carefully to allow the compressors to take the load and essentially, they kept the spring compressed to reduce the height of the strut. Only then did the bugger come out!! (it took me 2 hours to get to that idea so I hope I explained it clearly).

Anyway, the JOM's were assembled with only the bearing, the top mount rubber from the original strut and the flanged nut to keep it all in place. I had to wind the springs up very high to stop the adjuster rings fouling the tyre (you need 10mm spacers on the wheels for these things to go proper low).

All that done and I ran out of light!!! Tomorrow the rest will be done. I reckon I could do the other side in an hour now I've got the method down. I'll take some pics tomorrow to explain what I meant about getting the spring compressors in place with the spring already compressed.

The best thing though - I really enjoyed doing it!!

 

[Matt-V5-Duffy]

Thats why I undid my topmounts first then put the compressors on upside down and tightened them with my windy gun, still a pain to do though

 

[S3 AKR]

I couldn't get to them through the hole with the tools I had - the impact wrench was too short and I didn't have an extension bar, but in hindsight I probably put the top clamp too far down the coil!!

Anyhow - now I have a method I am expecting the job to do the other side to be a lot quicker today!!

How did you get on with tyres rubbing the strut ? What wheels do you have on it now ? I have some Cupra 17" Starfish track wheels that I can put on but the tyres are on the limit, and I have the standard 16" wheels as per the pictures on page 1 of this thread.

 

[Matt-V5-Duffy]

I had to use 2 extension bars to reach down to the compressors, thankfully the passengers side is quite easy

I've got the standard 16" sheriff badge alloys on mine and haven't had any rubbing issues at all, are your tyres rubbing on the damper body or the adjuster rings?

 

[S3 AKR]

On the adjuster rings/springs. I've had to set them quite high for now to keep them clear of the tyre. There is only about 5-10mm between tyre and rings though at the moment and the car isn't that much lower than it was on the standard setup (about an inch). The rings are set about 3" up measured from bottom thread to the top edge of the top ring where it meets the helper spring. On the Starfish 17" wheels there is a little more room but not much more.

The rears are sitting very low too!!! They have dropped about 50mm. They need to be a bit higher to match the fronts a bit closer. It was a pain to get them adjusted up with everything back together. I'll leave them just in case things settle and have another look next weekend with the shocks undone at the bottom again to drop the hub down and get the pressure off the springs for easier and faster adjustment.

Even as it is though, the handling is much improved. Much less roll in the corners (I have a favourite fast 'S' bend not far from me on a 60mph road) and the car definitely flows better than it did. It does need the fine tuning and playing about to get the car more evenly sat but it really does have potential to be vastly better than it used to be.

 

[Matt-V5-Duffy]

It's not a problem I've come across regards rubbing (apart from the driveshaft and ARB getting intimate). I'll have a feel around my arches to see how much clearance I've got and report back here. I need to get mine re-adjusted now it has all settled down and bedded in.

The handling is loads better too, doesn't dive nearly as much under braking nor squat under acceleration and corners a lot better too - speedbumps are a bit of an issue now though, most are fine but the really tall/vicious ones have already taken their toll on my exhaust shield under the cat

 

[S3 AKR]

Cheers fella - I really appreciate the help with this.

 

[S3 AKR]

It needs some adjustment to even it out front to rear (I think it looks lower at the back), but it shows the potential.

As it looks now :-

 

[Matt-V5-Duffy]

Looking good mate

I've just been out and checked the clearance from the tyre to the damper/adjusters, I have a gap of about 1cm on both sides between the tyre and damper body as my adjusters are sat slightly above the tread blocks, I think i'll get some spacers on to give me more peace of mind as those adjusters are pretty sharp and I don't fancy them cutting into my tyres

 

[S3 AKR]

Cheers for that - sounds about the same as mine then (as you'd expect!).

I've just been looking at 11mm front spacers and 16mm rears from Awesome-Gti but they seem a lot of money for what they are (£104 for the 4) and you need to buy extended wheel bolts on top of that too (£3 each - absolute joke IMHO). The rears don't need doing other than for looks and that extra bit of width that others have said helps the handling.

 

[S3 AKR]

Changed the pics for better ones in Post #71 now!!

 

[Matt-V5-Duffy]

The price of the spacers is quite high, I'll ask my old man if he can make some up for me as he's an engineer

Your Toledo looks pretty good mate, I need to get my lower bumper plastics colour coded as mine looks crap in comparison.

 

[S3 AKR]

The camera lies my friend!! The pics make it look a lot better than it is to be honest. Its got the look of a car that's done 92k miles up close, and 88k of that as a Police rapid response car in London! That said though, its as straight as a die and has a service history to kill for!!

If you old man wants to make 2 sets I'll pay him for some!!

 

[Matt-V5-Duffy]

It's had a bit of a rough life then! Mine has only done 55k but looks like it has done much much more thanks to a learner bumping the back of it and cracking the paint on the top of the bumper

I'll ask him if he can get them done when he gets in tonight

 

[S3 AKR]

That must have been annoying. Still, with 55k on it I would expect the paintwork is better than mine and its probably worth having it done.

 

[Matt-V5-Duffy]

It seems the previous owner washed it very rarely so it was pretty sorry looking when I got it. The paint felt like sandpaper but a quick going over with some Lime Prime Lite gave it its shine back

 

[jonjay]

Great progress on this Andy. The M3 looks awesome in the background.

On the paint condition. nothing a good detail couldn't sort out?