Hi Everyone,

Curious if anyone knows whether the top nut on the shock (which holds the upper shock mount in place) should be tightened to the point where it is flush with the shock rod or is there always a little gap? If you look inside the nut, where the CATS get plugged in, I have about a millimeter or two of a gap and I am afraid to try to tighten further for fear of snapping the threads on the shock. Just curious what everyone's experience is and if they see a small space with theirs. I have a subtle clunking after replacing the upper shock mounts and I am hoping it is because that nut needs to be tightened but again am scared to tighten it!

Thanks!
Corey

 

My wife's car is an XK8, not an XKR, but after replacing the front upper shock mounts last summer, the car had a persistent rattle until we cranked both top shock nuts down to where at least 5 threads on top of the stud were showing above the nut. Once we did that, the rattle magically disappeared....

 

Cool thank you for the info. The issue I am facing could be different as the XKR shocks have the adaptive plugs that plug in. Because of this, the top of the shock is hollow and very fragile. It is surprisingly easy to just snap the threads right off of the shock.

 

On my own CATS car looking down on that top nut, cats plug out, there is a small internal step up in internal diameter from unthreaded tip to threaded portion of nut. I can see probably 3 to 5 threads above the top of shock rod.
Calliper depth measurement of 8mm from top surface of nut to top surface of shock rod.
Hope that makes sense to you.

 

There is a torque setting for this nut but don’t recall it just now.

 

torque settings are 40 Nm for non cats cars and 18Nm for cats.

 

The Cats shock rod has an internal hex so you can hold it with a metric Allen key and tighten the nut with a box end wrench slipped over the Allen. Mine loosened a bit and made the rattle, the sign being twisted Sensor wires. A drop of blue Loctite on the threads did the trick.

 

An old trick is the get some mole grips and tape up the jaws. Clamp onto the piston rod thro the spring and see if you can move it up and down.

 

Great thank you for the reminder. I will fiddle with this after work today and see where we stand. Appreciate everyone's input!

 

I suggest you check the appearance of your nut is as l described and if it looks like it needs any further tightening, that you do it with the full weight of the car on the spring.
If the spring/ shock assembly is fully extended the top of that shaft may not survive any attempt to compress the spring using the nut, don't exceed the 14 Nm.