So I've just picked up a Fabia on AP coilovers. Two problems present themselves, firstly being it's too low, even crawling over some of the speed bumps in my area gives a little scrape, so it's got to be lifted a little bit. Secondly, the previous owner had it so low that he's removed the adjusters off the rear altogether, so I'll need to get these back on.

Am I right in thinking it'll just be a case of chocking the front, raising the back, and undoing the two bolts at the bottom of the struts to drop the rear arm and slot the adjusters back on at the bottom of the strut? Then get them threaded and adjusted, bolt everything back up, and drop the car again? I don't think the front needs adjusting as the sump guard doesn't seem to scrape over the humps, but I reckon either the previous owner had it slightly nose up on purpose, or because he mostly drove it around with the back seats and the spare wheel out, now I've got them back in it's caused the rear to be lower...

edit - also, it's only just occurred to me that I don't recall seeing any special spanners when he gave me the adjusters...are special tools required? I'm guessing they're not adjustable by hand even with all the weight off since you're still adjusting against the spring pressure?

Edited 15 April, 201115 yr by gavinchappell

Yep, the adjusters go back onto the bottom of the spring

But as you say, just unbolt the shock etc to get it in.

Normally they come with a big C spanner to do the adjusting, although you'll probably find it'll sit just right once the adjusters are back in, so you may be ok.

Yeah, I guess the rings themselves will add a bit of height, but if I'm putting them back on I'd rather they were on "properly" (i.e. threaded onto the struts) rather than just wedged in at the bottom. Not that it makes a lot of difference I suppose since they're not exactly going anywhere! Not sure how much extra height I need for the bumps, will have to play it by ear and see if he left the spanners in the car or just forgot to give them to me with the adjusters. Failing that, are the spanners fairly generic, or would I have to speak to AP about getting one? I know people with Mk4 Ibizas running on coilovers, but I don't think any of them are AP...

They dont thread onto the struts at all.

They just create a new/adjustable platform for the spring to sit on, IIRC thats secured by a nut/bolt onto the original spring platform.

Edited 15 April, 201115 yr by LittleJohnny

Hmm, the rings I have are definitely threaded on the inside and don't have a hole to bolt through to secure it, which is why I assumed they must thread onto a mating thread on the strut. There's three "dimples" but I think they must be for the C spanner to grip onto as they don't go all the way through?

edit - http://www.corbymotorsport.com/images/ap%20coilover%20image.jpg not sure what these are from, but I'm guessing mine look like that as my blue rings are definitely threaded on the inside

edit 2 - unless of course I'm being slightly stupid, since the spring and damper are separate on the rear of a Fabia, so mine probably don't look like that...?

Edited 15 April, 201115 yr by gavinchappell

I have AP's on mine, fronts have a grub screw with allen key head which needs un-doing to wind up/down at the front.

Rears have a threaded part then the springs go over this, he may have taken the threaded part off when taking the adjuster outs.

Pictures speak a thousand words!

The complete kit

Cheers Ross, that makes sense, I was obviously confused and looking on the wrong set before. Hopefully he (well, Awesome, as I think they did the work for him) hasn't removed the black parts cos he certainly didn't give me those, just the blue rings for the rears.

I like the stance as it is, so I reckon I'm going to go with putting the adjusters back on (once I've figured out how to trolley jack and axle stand the rear, lots of threads on here say to put the stands under the spring seats but that's obviously not going to work if I want to lower the rear beam to replace the adjusters) and hope that the extra ~8mm or so raises it just enough...

I haven't had chance to get this done yet as I've been busy and need to get new axle stands with a groove for the sills so that I can support the car without resting it on the rear spring seats, but I had a quick look underneath and I think I've spotted the bit that's scraping. There's a metal bar that runs across the car roughly underneath the front seats and "droops" down towards the road. It looks almost like it's there to support the weight of something, but I can't see anything under there which would need supporting and the only thing I can think of could be the cat (which I don't have)? I'm wondering whether I can just take that off and cure the problem that way without having to raise the car as looks wise it's fantastic the way it is, it's just the speedbumps which are causing me problems :(