Saturday, March 10, 2012

Coilover prepped for install

I recently got my replacement springs from Fortune Auto today (to take care of the paint chipping issue). They look good but for some reason the are a completely different shade of blue!?


Not that it makes any real difference once its on the car (since they can't be seen) and everything else on the car is dark so it will stand out even less with the new color, but I still emailed Fortune Auto about the color difference. I got a very prompt response from Fortune Auto in regards to me notifying them of the difference.  Their response was as follows:

"We are aware. Our standard springs come from Taiwan, and they were painted in that factory.They were supposed to be coated but they just painted on top of the green color. So we had to strip the springs down and get them powder coated locally. So for one its powder coat vs paint and lastly they were not coated by the same facility so yes there will be a variation. "


Good job on their customer service part and getting back to me with answers nearly immediately! The only thing that they could have done different/better would have been to let me know in advance that the color would be different, but its all good.

I took some time to really check out the new springs. There was some question if they are the same diameter (spring rate) but they only looked like a different size because of the different angle and the different color/gloss (in the above picture). I don't have micrometers so I can't check exactly but I measured and compared a bunch and can't tell a difference. While swapping the springs over I also decided to remove the several stickers that came on the lower "ear" to keep it clean looking and I am sure they would only get ugly as they got dirty. That said they would never be seen unless the car is on a lift but all the more reason to not have them there to make things harder to keep clean.  Below is a comparison shot:


(New springs pictured on the bottom)

I also spent some time with the coilovers trying to make sure I get as much done in advance to reduce what we need to do when I get to installing them.  I  removed the lower ear and loaded the threads up with anti-seize and re-assembled.  Afterwards I re-set the preload on all four to 1/4".  Check back soon for more info once these are installed.

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