How messed up is my Tein Flex?

Bought this set of Tein Mono Flex in 2009 from 949racing and put it on my '90 without really knowing much about setting them up. Through dumb luck I got the ride height even and ran them on the car till last fall. I wasn't a fan of how hard they rode, and when I got a new Koni setup for my '93 I took the Fatcat Bilsteins from that car and put them in the '90.

When I took the Flex out I knew something didn't look right. The one that came out of the left front has the spring way more compressed than the right front. Worse yet, I can't seem to get the perch rings separated. I can get them to turn if I balance myself on the wrenches and stand on them, but they don't come apart.

Do you think I'll have any luck trying to continue to get these rings apart? Could the sleeve's threads be stripped?

I'd love to sell these things to recoup some of the money I laid out for the Konis but if one of these is F'd up I couldn't do that with a clean conscience. What should be my next step?

Sell them as is? I'll give you $400.

Have you tried running both rings to the bottom and then trying to separate them there? There would be less spring pressure on them, might help a little.

Why are the shock lengths different?

^What bentwrench said. So those are both fronts?

HAs the shock on the right frozen/corroded solid? How else could it keep the spring compressed.

Wow are those really the same springs!? If so, that's a metric berkeleyton of preload!

+1 for moving the whole thing to the bottom and then trying to separate them. Remember to douse the threads in WD40 before running them again to reduce the chance of this happening in the future.

Yea, try to remove the spring preload. I adjusted the perches on my tein coilovers and i had a hell of a time getting those collars loose. I ended up using a vice , pb blaster, a torch , and a BFH on the wrenches to get them going.

Good luck

Has the car ever been wrecked? Maybe bent control arms?

One on the right looks... like something is horribly awry.

If you figure this out and they aren't hosed, shoot a PM my way, i can help you out with the recouping money side of things.

I was just thinking, maybe removing the preload first isn't the best idea - couldn't that damage the threads, turning the whole seat with the two rings tensioned against each other?

A spring compressor would be a safer solution to achieve the same goal.

Those are constructed with a generic shock insert inside the lower housing. Depending on how far the insert is screwed into the housing, you can have different lengths of the complete assembly. That could be what's going on - the one on the right has the insert screwed in much further.

It's going to be fun to try to deal with this. I think that amount of preload might be part of your problem, there's a lot of pressure on those perches. I don't think you'll be able to get a spring compressor on there. You could try the explosive self-disassembly technique - in this case, you could wrap the spring/shock setup in a moving blanket and use an impact gun to remove the upper nut. It will come apart in a hurry, especially on that right shock.

Alternately, can Tein rebuild them?

seems like you could put the right one back on the car and set the car on the ground and then remove the top nut with an impact... that might keep things a little safer.

That's not a bad plan. You may have to disassemble some of the suspension to get it all apart once the spring is free.

Keith Tanner wrote: You could try the explosive self-disassembly technique - in this case, you could wrap the spring/shock setup in a moving blanket and use an impact gun to remove the upper nut. It will come apart in a hurry, especially on that right shock.

Russian Garage Roulette?

It actually works pretty well. On a less preloaded setup, you can just put your foot on the upper mount and run the top nut off with an impact gun. The kick isn't bad at all and the shock skitters a couple of feet. On this one, with that highly preloaded spring, using the car as a spring compressor is a less risky plan.

Keith Tanner wrote: It actually works pretty well. On a less preloaded setup, you can just put your foot on the upper mount and run the top nut off with an impact gun. The kick isn't bad at all and the shock skitters a couple of feet.

Everytime i do this, everyone around me acts like there's going to be a nuclear explosion.

rcutclif wrote: seems like you could put the right one back on the car and set the car on the ground and then remove the top nut with an impact... that might keep things a little safer.

That sounds like the most dangerous suggestion yet. The right hand shock is badly berkeleyed, and is holding the shaft from extending. That thing is a stick of dynamite right now.

Nope. If you have the car sitting on it, then removing the upper nut won't do anything as the car will keep the spring compressed. You can then lift the car up slowly and unload the spring.

Common misperception: preload changes spring rate. In reality, as long as the preload is less than the corner weight, the weight of the car will compress the spring to the same length regardless of preload.

Also, read my description of how these are put together. I'll bet there's nothing wrong with the actual parts, just a bad assembly.

Thanks for the advice. I was going to try a spring compressor but figured I'd never get the clips to bite on the spring as compressed as it is. Putting it back in the car and undoing the top nut sounds like the best plan.