The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Guy's

Gaz ride height adjustables fitted front and rear with Standard springs - your thoughts please.



Paul

Front looks about right, back needs to come down another inch. But give it a week or two's use for the springs and shox to "settle" You'll probably find then that the back is good and the front needs to be raised!

Steve

What he said....

but rear ride height should be determined by the height of your trolley jack so it can go under the trailing arm.
Its a right old pain if you cant jack the car up.

Jonners

Steve's right. You should put some miles on it to settle the suspension before making any adjustments.

Looks good to me, be interested to see how it settles. What was your base height setup?

SprintMWU773V wrote:Looks good to me, be interested to see how it settles. What was your base height setup?

What I did was really scientific, since I had no information to guide me, either on standard Toledo spring rates or on relative weights bearing on the wheels. I ran the adjusting rings right down and fitted the springs unloaded then ran the adjusters back up until the springs were engaged with the seats at both ends and not loose. This I used as a base setting and though it caused me some considerable grief in the initial fitting because of how long the sprung section was, it turned out to be fairly accurate as regards ride height with the stock length springs i used.
After about a fortnights use though, when things had settled, I had to wind each leg up just over an inch to compensate, then another roughly 0.5 inch at about 6 months in along with a levelling out adjustment. Since then I have not had to adjust the ride height and confined my experiments to shocker stiffness and believe I have now optimised that too. I won't bore anyone with details of that since it is tailored to my extremely non standard car but my recommendation is to run the front as stiff as you can stand it (but NOT maxed out) and the rear middling soft. This is pretty much generic to front engined rear drive cars though and is nothing new.

Steve

Jon Tilson wrote:What he said....

but rear ride height should be determined by the height of your trolley jack so it can go under the trailing arm.
Its a right old pain if you cant jack the car up.

Jonners

I bought a fancy "low entry" trolley jack from my local factors. Its quite a posh one and cost me nearly £70 but it was only a fiver more than the equivalent standard model and mine is not the only lowered car I have to deal with by a long stick so I considered it an investment.
I can actually get a standard jack under my trailing arms, but only when there is air in the tyres! The low entry will lift it even with a flat tyre.

Steve

Carledo wrote:

SprintMWU773V wrote:Looks good to me, be interested to see how it settles. What was your base height setup?

What I did was really scientific, since I had no information to guide me, either on standard Toledo spring rates or on relative weights bearing on the wheels. I ran the adjusting rings right down and fitted the springs unloaded then ran the adjusters back up until the springs were engaged with the seats at both ends and not loose. This I used as a base setting and though it caused me some considerable grief in the initial fitting because of how long the sprung section was, it turned out to be fairly accurate as regards ride height with the stock length springs i used.
After about a fortnights use though, when things had settled, I had to wind each leg up just over an inch to compensate, then another roughly 0.5 inch at about 6 months in along with a levelling out adjustment. Since then I have not had to adjust the ride height and confined my experiments to shocker stiffness and believe I have now optimised that too. I won't bore anyone with details of that since it is tailored to my extremely non standard car but my recommendation is to run the front as stiff as you can stand it (but NOT maxed out) and the rear middling soft. This is pretty much generic to front engined rear drive cars though and is nothing new.

Steve

I agree almost word for word with what you written.
However I would just add that it is not wise to run a Sprint too low at the front. It never worked when they were raced and on the road you will just have to slow down everywhere to accomodate our third world bumpy tracks they call roads now.

trackerjack wrote:

Carledo wrote:

SprintMWU773V wrote:Looks good to me, be interested to see how it settles. What was your base height setup?

What I did was really scientific, since I had no information to guide me, either on standard Toledo spring rates or on relative weights bearing on the wheels. I ran the adjusting rings right down and fitted the springs unloaded then ran the adjusters back up until the springs were engaged with the seats at both ends and not loose. This I used as a base setting and though it caused me some considerable grief in the initial fitting because of how long the sprung section was, it turned out to be fairly accurate as regards ride height with the stock length springs i used.
After about a fortnights use though, when things had settled, I had to wind each leg up just over an inch to compensate, then another roughly 0.5 inch at about 6 months in along with a levelling out adjustment. Since then I have not had to adjust the ride height and confined my experiments to shocker stiffness and believe I have now optimised that too. I won't bore anyone with details of that since it is tailored to my extremely non standard car but my recommendation is to run the front as stiff as you can stand it (but NOT maxed out) and the rear middling soft. This is pretty much generic to front engined rear drive cars though and is nothing new.

Steve

I agree almost word for word with what you written.
However I would just add that it is not wise to run a Sprint too low at the front. It never worked when they were raced and on the road you will just have to slow down everywhere to accomodate our third world bumpy tracks they call roads now.

Its not wise to run a Vauxhall powered Sprint (or Toledo) too low at the front either, Ian ripped the sump plug from his Redtop Sprint (I had to supply him with another Carlton sump) and I scuffed mine badly which is what prompted the second upward adjustment!

Thanks for the kind words Jon, it's always nice to be agreed with by an expert!

Steve