ripp
ClioSport Club Member
182 FFAT
Hi guys,
Did some diy work on the car yesterday and wanted to share some stuff here also.
The mounts:
As you can see I have the old style k-tec solid mounts. Thanks to some lovely chaps here I found the right bearings to replace - SKF GEH20C. There are other options on the market (even cheaper ones) but I went with SKF anyway.
First thing, I bought from a plumber store a short piece of connection pipe (it's threaded on the inside but that doesn't matter) to rest the mount on it and hammer the bearing downwards.
The pipe has 45mm inside diameter and about 5 cm length (length is optional, what you can find) , bearing has 42mm outer diameter so it passed through no problem.
I used one of the washers that sit inside the bearing to create a flat surface on which I used long 17mm socket to hammer the down the bearing. I had some trouble removing one of the circlips but it did came out after some bad words at it
A 2,2 lbs hammer did the job quite easy although you have to whack it pretty serious. I initially tried to use a vice to press the bearing out but it didn't wanted to move.
I then cleaned the mount of debris, put some anti seize paste inside where the new bearing would slide in and used a 28mm socket to hammer the new bearing in.
Then covered the circlips in anti seize paste also and job done with the mounts.
As said in the title I'm running the hated GAZ gha kit (don't judge me) and after I bought my second set 2 years ago I kept the old ones in the case I will refurb them at some point but was curious as what they were inside. So took a front damper apart and the horror! oil inside was a smelly brown chocolate sauce topping like liquid, filled with mud. I had that for four years on the car and did no service on it. Winters here are pretty harsh, the roads are covered with heavy defrosting agents and so on.
So the damper rods were pinched in some places and maybe that's how dirt came in and some of the oil got out, and the care drove really bad, but anyway.. lesson learned and for the new set I made some coilover socks -which I greatly advise, no matter the climate- which so far kept them nice and debris free.
First you unscrew the top cap and then pull the damper assembly out
Careful not to damage the o ring that sits on top of the assembly, be patient when doing this. It's a good idea to clamp the damper in a vice (I used some alloy jaw adapters not to damage the shock body)
And this is what the internal assembly looks like
Now I really was glad to see that everything inside looked ok, there was no dirt whatsoever, the oil looked clean. I asked GAZ a while ago what oil the use in the dampers and it's a 15W hydraulic stuff. Fortunately I already had some of this stuff laying in the shop as it's pretty common in many bike forks and only added some 20 maybe 30ml inside because the shaft had some play moving it up and down so figured that maybe there is not enough oil inside. And yep it kinda did the trick and after putting it back together it was better.
I didn't went to the hassle (as I was in a hurry) of draining all the oil out because as said it looked ok so just put it back together and that was it.
Then assembled the stuff back and nicely wrapped the strut in the sock and boom, moving to the other side.
Tip: in order to undo the threaded 24mm nut that tightens on the shaft and sits inside the bearing I had to grind a socket to fit in:
one side assembled:
The other side went just the same, but take a look at the state the old bearing was:
It also had a major play in it (the reason for all the hassle) and the clunking drove me mad.
Bottom line:
It's a job easily doable if you have a vice and some basic tools. The damper oil is easy to source (I used motorex 15w fork oil) and the dampers are really not that complicated inside and if you take your time you can take them apart piece by piece and put back together no worries
Will take the rears apart soon as they seem to make a clunk noise and GAZ were very kind and sent me some parts to replace inside them free of charge (top chaps!) and I'll be back with how that will be sorted.
Sorry for the bad pics but you get the idea
Hope that helped some of you
Cheers!
Did some diy work on the car yesterday and wanted to share some stuff here also.
The mounts:
As you can see I have the old style k-tec solid mounts. Thanks to some lovely chaps here I found the right bearings to replace - SKF GEH20C. There are other options on the market (even cheaper ones) but I went with SKF anyway.
First thing, I bought from a plumber store a short piece of connection pipe (it's threaded on the inside but that doesn't matter) to rest the mount on it and hammer the bearing downwards.
The pipe has 45mm inside diameter and about 5 cm length (length is optional, what you can find) , bearing has 42mm outer diameter so it passed through no problem.
I used one of the washers that sit inside the bearing to create a flat surface on which I used long 17mm socket to hammer the down the bearing. I had some trouble removing one of the circlips but it did came out after some bad words at it
A 2,2 lbs hammer did the job quite easy although you have to whack it pretty serious. I initially tried to use a vice to press the bearing out but it didn't wanted to move.
I then cleaned the mount of debris, put some anti seize paste inside where the new bearing would slide in and used a 28mm socket to hammer the new bearing in.
Then covered the circlips in anti seize paste also and job done with the mounts.
As said in the title I'm running the hated GAZ gha kit (don't judge me
) and after I bought my second set 2 years ago I kept the old ones in the case I will refurb them at some point but was curious as what they were inside. So took a front damper apart and the horror! oil inside was a smelly brown chocolate sauce topping like liquid, filled with mud. I had that for four years on the car and did no service on it. Winters here are pretty harsh, the roads are covered with heavy defrosting agents and so on.So the damper rods were pinched in some places and maybe that's how dirt came in and some of the oil got out, and the care drove really bad, but anyway.. lesson learned and for the new set I made some coilover socks -which I greatly advise, no matter the climate- which so far kept them nice and debris free.
First you unscrew the top cap and then pull the damper assembly out
Careful not to damage the o ring that sits on top of the assembly, be patient when doing this. It's a good idea to clamp the damper in a vice (I used some alloy jaw adapters not to damage the shock body)
And this is what the internal assembly looks like
Now I really was glad to see that everything inside looked ok, there was no dirt whatsoever, the oil looked clean. I asked GAZ a while ago what oil the use in the dampers and it's a 15W hydraulic stuff. Fortunately I already had some of this stuff laying in the shop as it's pretty common in many bike forks and only added some 20 maybe 30ml inside because the shaft had some play moving it up and down so figured that maybe there is not enough oil inside. And yep it kinda did the trick and after putting it back together it was better.
I didn't went to the hassle (as I was in a hurry) of draining all the oil out because as said it looked ok so just put it back together and that was it.
Then assembled the stuff back and nicely wrapped the strut in the sock and boom, moving to the other side.
Tip: in order to undo the threaded 24mm nut that tightens on the shaft and sits inside the bearing I had to grind a socket to fit in:
one side assembled:
The other side went just the same, but take a look at the state the old bearing was:
It also had a major play in it (the reason for all the hassle) and the clunking drove me mad.
Bottom line:
It's a job easily doable if you have a vice and some basic tools. The damper oil is easy to source (I used motorex 15w fork oil) and the dampers are really not that complicated inside and if you take your time you can take them apart piece by piece and put back together no worries
Will take the rears apart soon as they seem to make a clunk noise and GAZ were very kind and sent me some parts to replace inside them free of charge (top chaps!) and I'll be back with how that will be sorted.
Sorry for the bad pics but you get the idea
Hope that helped some of you
Cheers!
Last edited:
