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Aftermarket Coffin Arms


Lennym1984

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On 4/15/2018 at 8:49 AM, Lennym1984 said:

I finally got around to fitting my coffin arms and tuning forks yesterday and despite not thinking that they were bad before (I was only changing them out due to age) I am quite pleased with the improvement. 

Well worth doing and really easy provided you have a decent tool box

I'd recommend an alignment soon, I've just destroyed my front tyres by laziness...

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54 minutes ago, james_ly said:

I'd recommend an alignment soon, I've just destroyed my front tyres by laziness...

Thanks to your post the other day, I have it booked in next Tuesday! Despite the lack of adjustment in the arms, I assume that the process of popping the ball joint and dangling the damper is probably enough to throw out the alignment

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It's more likely that the old bushes will have some "sag" in them and if it was tracked with those then it will be out with new bushes. Plus suspension tends to wear and settle over time requiring it be checked every so often.

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1 hour ago, Eddy555 said:

It's more likely that the old bushes will have some "sag" in them and if it was tracked with those then it will be out with new bushes. Plus suspension tends to wear and settle over time requiring it be checked every so often.

My hitting it with a bigger hammer probably didn't help either... 

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2 hours ago, Lennym1984 said:

Thanks to your post the other day, I have it booked in next Tuesday! Despite the lack of adjustment in the arms, I assume that the process of popping the ball joint and dangling the damper is probably enough to throw out the alignment

Will be interesting how out it is - and if the camber is affected at all.

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On 16/04/2018 at 4:42 PM, james_ly said:

Will be interesting how out it is - and if the camber is affected at all.

I got my car back from having it aligned today and the nearside camber was a little out of spec and the toe in/out was also affected (I can't quite understand how this is connected to the control arms but I'm sure somebody on here can advise). It is now perfectly within spec and appears to drive nicely.

I'm pretty sure that you could often get away without having it re-alligned but for the sake of £100 I think it was well worth it.

 

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23 hours ago, Lennym1984 said:

I got my car back from having it aligned today and the nearside camber was a little out of spec and the toe in/out was also affected (I can't quite understand how this is connected to the control arms but I'm sure somebody on here can advise). It is now perfectly within spec and appears to drive nicely.

I'm pretty sure that you could often get away without having it re-alligned but for the sake of £100 I think it was well worth it.

 

Yep I got mine aligned too and the camber was in spec. My theory is that the mounting hole for the tuning fork is slightly different to OEM because I remember having to wiggle it all around to get the bolt in. I can’t see how just undoing the nut and splitting the ball joint would alter the alignment when you compare that force to hitting a pot hole at 70. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

Slightly off topic but didn't want to start another thread..

I have a new set of rear tuning forks ready to fit and intend to do the coffin arms as well. When I've replaced control arms (aka tuning forks) in the past on other cars, you don't fully tighten the bolts until the car is off the jack and wheel back on. Preload I think is the phrase. Is it the case for boxsters? Coffin arms also?

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With the coffin arms this is needed for the inner bolts that mount onto the chassis/subframe. You want the arm in the normal loaded position before tightening up so the bush is at a resting position at normal suspension height..

The outer ball joint into the hub can be tightened to the specified torque.

The tuning fork/control arms can also be tightened to the specified torque as it's a ball joint covered in a dust cover at the chassis end and and bolt through the coffin arm at the other.

So in summary really it's only the inner bolts (front or rear suspension) that need to be tightened up when the suspension is loaded up. See the pic below for a clearer explanation of what I mean.

Bpa5THd.jpg

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53 minutes ago, Eddy555 said:

With the coffin arms this is needed for the inner bolts that mount onto the chassis/subframe. You want the arm in the normal loaded position before tightening up so the bush is at a resting position at normal suspension height..

The outer ball joint into the hub can be tightened to the specified torque.

The tuning fork/control arms can also be tightened to the specified torque as it's a ball joint covered in a dust cover at the chassis end and and bolt through the coffin arm at the other.

So in summary really it's only the inner bolts (front or rear suspension) that need to be tightened up when the suspension is loaded up. See the pic below for a clearer explanation of what I mean.

Bpa5THd.jpg

That's a really useful picture for getting an idea of what all the components are. Copied for future reference?

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On 12 October 2018 at 8:54 AM, Eddy555 said:

With the coffin arms this is needed for the inner bolts that mount onto the chassis/subframe. You want the arm in the normal loaded position before tightening up so the bush is at a resting position at normal suspension height..

The outer ball joint into the hub can be tightened to the specified torque.

The tuning fork/control arms can also be tightened to the specified torque as it's a ball joint covered in a dust cover at the chassis end and and bolt through the coffin arm at the other.

So in summary really it's only the inner bolts (front or rear suspension) that need to be tightened up when the suspension is loaded up. See the pic below for a clearer explanation of what I mean.

Bpa5THd.jpg

Oohhh!!!! Christmas!!!!

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On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 8:54 AM, Eddy555 said:

With the coffin arms this is needed for the inner bolts that mount onto the chassis/subframe. You want the arm in the normal loaded position before tightening up so the bush is at a resting position at normal suspension height..

The outer ball joint into the hub can be tightened to the specified torque.

The tuning fork/control arms can also be tightened to the specified torque as it's a ball joint covered in a dust cover at the chassis end and and bolt through the coffin arm at the other.

So in summary really it's only the inner bolts (front or rear suspension) that need to be tightened up when the suspension is loaded up. See the pic below for a clearer explanation of what I mean.

Bpa5THd.jpg

Mmm, that's a nice (and expensive ) picture , just goes to show how many joints and bushes there are to wear out ! 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 10/12/2018 at 8:54 AM, Eddy555 said:

With the coffin arms this is needed for the inner bolts that mount onto the chassis/subframe. You want the arm in the normal loaded position before tightening up so the bush is at a resting position at normal suspension height..

The outer ball joint into the hub can be tightened to the specified torque.

The tuning fork/control arms can also be tightened to the specified torque as it's a ball joint covered in a dust cover at the chassis end and and bolt through the coffin arm at the other.

So in summary really it's only the inner bolts (front or rear suspension) that need to be tightened up when the suspension is loaded up. See the pic below for a clearer explanation of what I mean.

Bpa5THd.jpg

Hi mate, just want to pick your brains on this one final time. How do you tighten up the inner bolts on the coffin or other arms when the car is on the ground, or is there another way such as jacking up the hub, driving up on the kerb etc?

Also, what made you change the very back rear fork / arm, i.e. not the tuning fork nor the coffin arm? I've read a few times these don't tend to need changing, err I think. Otherwise I'll be changing every single part that you have photographed there 

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1 hour ago, Hughsehhh said:

Hi mate, just want to pick your brains on this one final time. How do you tighten up the inner bolts on the coffin or other arms when the car is on the ground, or is there another way such as jacking up the hub, driving up on the kerb etc?

Use a trolley jack under the ball joint to lift up the arm to roughly where it will be when sitting on the ground. The only reason for doing it is to ensure that the bushing is not twisted when the car sits at rest.

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1 hour ago, Hughsehhh said:

Hi mate, just want to pick your brains on this one final time. How do you tighten up the inner bolts on the coffin or other arms when the car is on the ground, or is there another way such as jacking up the hub, driving up on the kerb etc?

Also, what made you change the very back rear fork / arm, i.e. not the tuning fork nor the coffin arm? I've read a few times these don't tend to need changing, err I think. Otherwise I'll be changing every single part that you have photographed there 

As Lenny said I jacked up the arm at the hub to take the weight of the car and then tightened it up.

I changed everything as nothing seems to have been changed in ages and at 115k lots of the joints were torn or worn out.

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Cheers, it's really quite hard to assess the state of the suspension as it requires quite a lot of load to move things around. You may feel the ball joints are worn at the end of the control arms, but even then that could be difficult. Once apart it was obvious that stuff was worn though.

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  • 2 months later...

Hi Chaps,

carparts4less are doing 4 x Meyle coffin arms for £313 inclusive of VAT this weekend, is that a good price?

Just getting my 04 3.2s 986 sorted for the summer!

Cheers,

Ash

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