Tom,



Shows no compression side to side





See spring imprint by Finger; Pre-etched imprint opposite side (ends by yellow dot)

Hope this helps mate.

 

This is exactly how mine looked when I replaced the top mounts.

 

I've been digging in my folders for pictures of when I replaced my coils and shocks, but no luck so far. Will post if I find them.

For what it's worth, the current replacement of the bottom spacer no longer has the notch to seat the coil spring. I bought it directly from Jag, so pretty sure that's correct. However, I didn't feel good about it and used the original plastic one as it was in good shape.

The top of the coil on mine goes into a pretty hard plate, metal if memory serves, but definitely not soft. The top shock bushing is sandwiched between two metal plates as shown in your picture.

You can indeed add a spacer to raise ride height. I put 3/8" metal ones in mine to offset the (unintentionally) lowered springs. You should not need this if all components are new or up to spec. I do not recommend aftermarket coil springs for this reason. Spring rates can be suspect and this is a heavy car.

 

Thanks for the pictures!

Tom

 

Good to know.

Thanks!
Tom

 

My concern over the old springs are why I got new springs with my new shocks and mounts. I've been plenty slow with this. I don't want to redo parts of the process when I am done. I'll keep the spacer approach in mind if I still have the rubbing issue when these are in place.

Thanks!
Tom

 

Good plan. You can add the spacer without taking the suspension apart. Just jack the car up, disconnect the lower shock mount, and the spring assembly will drop far enough to get the spacer in.

Use the upper mount to make a pattern in case you need the spacer.

 

Yesterday I settled all family business. Well, front suspension business, anyway. I started buying parts last summer, and kept adding as I noticed more worn parts.

I have to say Jag#4 and macs99 were way ahead of me. At the start, the two of them pretty much recommended everything I ended up doing. I started at shocks and A arm bushings, then added shock mounts and springs. By the end I included lower bushings, ball joints and sway bar bushings. Somewhere in the middle, while parts were piling up in my garage, one of the hub bearings was replaced. I think I'm one hub bearing shy of complete refurb up front.

Recognizing my procrastination was an issue, I finally turned to a local independent shop that specializes in Jags. I needed help to press the ball joints and I just had them do all of the install. They said the lower bushings are their most common repair on XK8s, so I told them to do them while it was all apart.

Bottom line: drives like a new car. No more scraping and rubbing over bumps and dips. Better turns. Feels awesome! I enjoyed my car before. Now I know how much I was missing.

Thanks for all the advice and assistance while I dragged my heels.

Tom