County Springs/ Shocks

[jerryd]

I'm fitting new springs and shocks to the front of my County, I've dismantled everything but have noticed that the holes where the bottom of the shock absorber comes through are elongated :eek: looks like it's caused by buggered bushes maybe ??

Does anybody know if this will be okay to continue fitting the new shocks ?? It appears this piece of metal is welded to the axle housing and would be tricky to replace.

[DeeJay]

How elongated?
It must have been horribly noisy for a long time. There is a reasonable amount of play in one in good nick, so it might not be a problem if its not major and you do up the new bushes tighter.
The only fix I can think of is to remove the complete front axle, build up the hole by welding & grind it with either an angle or die grinder:(

[rar110]

I had this problem on the rear axle. I bought two heavy guage washers and welded them to the underside of the axle spring mount.

[jerryd]

The passenger side is even worse so I'll probably do the same and weld two washers in place. I know the rear on mine is bad, as there was no bottom bushes fitted to the shocks when I purchased the vehicle.

I have a stiff spot on the steering, which I thought might be shocks/springs/tyres but I think it might be the uj's on the steering as one is a bit clunky. Looks like a busy day tomorrow ;)

[DeeJay]

You can get away with washers in the rear, however, its a tight fit, worse with neopreme bushes on the front. I made up a tool out of a welding clamp to make it easier, but I can't access photobucket to show you:(

[long stroke]

Yeah it seems to be a fairly common problam on the older rovers, easyest fix is to just weld heavy washers in place as said previously...

In reguards to tight spots in the steering, it is quite likely to be the steering shaft uni's, we had the same problam on the county, lumpy steering turned out to be a seized uni:angel:

CHEERS TIM.

[jerryd]

I've got the new springs and shocks in situ, but how do I squash the new bottom rubbers enough to get the nut on the bottom ?? :eek::mad::(:):angel:

Been lots of swearing in the last 30 minutes , so am I doing something wrong ??

I've tried jacking the whole lot up, do I need to jack it so it compresses the shock absorber fully and then hopefully it squashes the rubber bushes ??

HELP :wasntme: