Axle Refurbishment, Advice Please?

[Robbiedundy 58 4 Cars]

Hey, I've got a 309 axle for my 205, I'm doing pretty much a full rebuild on the car so going to put my axle away to get refurbed. I live in the Highlands in Scotland so choice is pretty limited, there's a small business who does it like 2 mins from where I work. Here's a link to their site - www.omanmechanicalsolutions.co.uk/index.php?c=axle-repair

 

Can you tell me what you think, are the grease nipples a good idea? What are some questions I should ask when I go to see him?

 

Cheers.

[j_turnell 136 3 Cars]

I would look into doing it yourself, its pretty straight forward. All the information you need is on here. There is a build guide article on the main site and if you have any questions there are plenty of people on here to help

[Anthony 1,002]

Grease nipples don't solve the underlying weakness and won't allow the beam to last indefinitely, but it will delay/slow the failure by preventing water from destroying everything once the outer seals fail and should stop it seizing up.

 

Ultimately even with grease nipples the bearings themselves will eventually fail, and I've personally stripped a few beams with grease nipples that have been just as s**gged as everything else - the only difference is that you've a beamtube full of manky grease to deal with when refurbishing it.

 

Personally, I don't run grease nipples and would rather just strip the beam every few years, regrease and inspect/replace the bearings/seals, but I appreciate that's not an option for everyone and can get costly if you're paying for someone else's time.

 

I've no experience of that particular company so I can't comment on the quality of their refurbs or what their service is like. From what I've seen of other companies, it pays to do research, as you'll find certain names crop up more often than others in terms of poor workmanship and mis-suppling beams (eg base model spec bars rather than GTi etc)

[Robbiedundy 58 4 Cars]

Cheers for the help. I'm gonna do it myself, after all the whole point of my project was to learn how to work with cars, should be a good learning experience.

 

Another question, I bought the 309 axle and it came with brand new gaz shocks that have never been used and I don't think they've been on a car yet, I took the off the axle and tried compressing one of them and it just stays in, doesn't decompress (is that a word lol?)

 

Is there somewhere I can post them too to get serviced?

 

Cheers

[welshpug 1,656]

They're not gas charged so they wont return.

[Robbiedundy 58 4 Cars]

Oh so that's normal? Thanks

[Mac Crash 78 1 Cars]

Oh so that's normal? Thanks

Yip, try to forget the term "shocks" - the 205 rear "shocks" are the torsion beam axle, trailing arms and tyres, the damper acts only as a form of control and damps the rear suspension travel... not the best explanation but a basic one, the damper is fixed and has no control over the ride height.

 

I'm in the same boat as you, dependent on the results of the 4 wheel alignment tomorrow I'll either be trying to adjust the line of my axle by loosening the bolts and trying to shift the axis (something I don't think is really feasible to any degree but worth trying) or I'll be taking the beam off and rebuilding it, study the guides on the front page for familiarity, if others can do it, then so can you, with some patience and thought... cheaper and far more satisfying too.

[j_turnell 136 3 Cars]

Yip, try to forget the term "shocks" - the 205 rear "shocks" are the torsion beam axle, trailing arms and tyres, the damper acts only as a form of control and damps the rear suspension travel... not the best explanation but a basic one, the damper is fixed and has no control over the ride height.

 

I'm in the same boat as you, dependent on the results of the 4 wheel alignment tomorrow I'll either be trying to adjust the line of my axle by loosening the bolts and trying to shift the axis (something I don't think is really feasible to any degree but worth trying) or I'll be taking the beam off and rebuilding it, study the guides on the front page for familiarity, if others can do it, then so can you, with some patience and thought... cheaper and far more satisfying too.

 

 

They are 'Rear shock absorbers' so don't think there is anything wrong with using the term 'shocks'

 

If you have an alignment issue on the back then its more than likely a bent stub axle or trailing arm as apposed to the whole axle being misaligned. Or the bearings have collapsed, in which case your too late!

Edited February 12, 2015 by j_turnell

[Robbiedundy 58 4 Cars]

Ah right cool, I'll start ordering parts for the refurb. Cheers guys.

[Mac Crash 78 1 Cars]

 

 

They are 'Rear shock absorbers' so don't think there is anything wrong with using the term 'shocks'

 

If you have an alignment issue on the back then its more than likely a bent stub axle or trailing arm as apposed to the whole axle being misaligned. Or the bearings have collapsed, in which case your too late!

 

Well we can disagree, as it's a very loose term, I always associated shock absorber as being an American term, here we refer to them as dampers.

The stub axle is straight, I checked it when replacing the wheel bearing, beam was supposed to have been refurbished but that was nearly 5 years ago now, we will see when the beam is apart, I suspect your probably right about the bearings as there is negative camber on both rear wheels...