I am in the middle of replacing the shocks and shock mounts on my xk8. The white plastic bushing on the lower shock mount is broken. The lower mount is extremely rusted and starting to look like it's not going to be too long before it's rusted through. Looking around for the part, I can find NO exact replacement and the info I see is it isn't made any more nor supplied by Jaguar! Only thing I can find is here
not an exact replacement.
Do you know of another place where I can find the part, preferably in the States, or in your experience would this be ok?
Because of the deplorable condition of these front shocks I believe these shocks must be original equipment.
2000 XK8 convertible 91,000 miles. Still running strong!
The white spring seat is not available by itself. I tried both new and salvage parts & couldn't obtain one (or 2). You can only get one if you buy a new spring.
You can use a urethane insulator from Energy Suspensions (part # 16.6104). You can get them on Amazon or eBay. It's for a civic rear spring. Wayne (member cjd777) is recommending this part for his modified front strut assembly. I saw a photo of a completed strut assembly with these insulators on the forum but I can't find it now. Send Wayne a PM and he can probably point you to it.
The metal part (Jag calls it the spring pan) is available. I bought one from Terry's Jag last month and they are 'in stock'. It came in a few days. They are a little pricey (~ $50) but if you need one you'll have to suffer it.
Let me come in with some information on the spring pad I found that does in fact fit the spring seat on the bottom. BUUT, always a but, because the spring is not exactly flat in that area, the plastic spacer would be recommended to be in place between the spring and the pad, not that it won't do the job, but there will be some deformity where the spring is not level. It would of course give you a feeling that it's going to hold the spring in place, sorry, it does look a bit odd.
A little support from Jaguar on these cars would be nice as so many of the parts are only available through aftermarket distributors, shame.t
I would like to add the pad will cover 7/8's of the diameter with a perfect fit, so if the little kink in the bushing is going to bother you, turn it to the back on install. LOL
Just kidding, not a problem for most and the plastic will make it perfect.
Going to explore some of these options.
Thanks for the direction... suddenly I can't even find the metal spring pan anywhere. I think I'm just getting overwhelmed looking around different sites. Saw it somewhere earlier in the day. I'll get this figured out and let you know what I did.
again thanks for the help!
Well, what should have been a couple hours job took 3 weeks because of delivery times, but I'm ok with that because everything is perfect now.
I used the Civic rear spring pad suggested by Wayne(cjd777) - Energy Suspensions part # 16.6104-
super glued the old white plastic "seat" back together and assembled inside the poly spring pad. (Pressure of the spring will ensure all stays together. Installation videos are already all over this forum and you tube, so I'll not get into details there.
The overall difference in ride height using this lower pad in place of the stock adds only a minimum amount of height of a few millimeters.
I also had to buy new shock pans that I got at SNJ Barrett.
It helps to have a good friend who races on weekends and has a complete shop with lifts and professional spring compressor. The actual time compressing the spring, removing all the old components and installing all new components for a completed assembly took about 5 minutes each.
Thank you Al Camp !
I couldn't have gotten everything done without all of your help from Jaguar Forums.
Thanks all!
