i installed tokico illumina shocks on my stock springs. i used a spring compressor and the new upper mount bushings. Now, my front shocks are not centered in my springs. The shock dust cover almost touches the spring. is this normal? my rear shocks seem pretty centered in the springs.
in addition, my front left spring has slipped away from the lower seat a little bit. it wasn’t that way when i first installed it. these springs also seem larger in diameter at the bottom than the spring seat. do they look like the correct springs?
It should be relatively centered. Did you check how the spring is seated in the perch on the shock? Unlike a coilover style of spring the stock spring is not flat on the bottom, the perch it sits on is also not flat. They have to fit together sorta like how a yin yang symbol fits together. If they aren’t seated together correctly the spring will want to topple over and be at an angle relative to the shock. Not sure if that’s the problem, but it’s definitely something to look at. You’ll also want to check the top of the spring as well.
Colin, thanks for the feedback. i tried to seat the spring in the lower seat in a way that made sense, but maybe i put it in wrong! i’ll check that first. it looks like the springs and the upper shock mounts are the same left and right so reversing them shouldn’t have an effect…
I will report back with pictures and see if i can fix the issue.
pictures have been added. these things look crazy! almost like the springs are wrong or something. i have done a ton of spring / shocks changes and never run into this issue. help!
to me in the 3rd and last pic ur springs almost look bent or warped somehow, cant do a straight line bc im on a laptop but see how it curves man, i think u got bad springs
your stock springs are cut! that’s why it’s bending like that. i assume that if you install it on your car and lower it, the weight of your car should compress it enough where the angle of the coils will be more aligned to the bottom seat of the strut and the spring will sit in proportion to the strut. however, i personally wouldn’t do that and get new springs. better peace of mind.
Yeah, I concur with iogearz. The bottom of that spring does not look right, it looks to have been cut, but the pics are a bit small so it’s hard to tell detail (I suggest using Flickr. Photobucket is junk). The proper way to have cut that spring would be to try and flatten the end a little so that it can sit a little better in the perch, cutting springs so they fit OK is sorta a pain - not necessarily a bad way to go though. I had cut springs on my car for awhile and it gave a nice drop and comfy ride. But I basically only did it because I didn’t want to use a spring compressor.
