Front suspension question

[areznik]

Hey guys,On my Q45 '94 the front of the car seems to be lower than the rear, when I look from the side. On eye it seems that the distance between the top of the tire and the fender is half of that of the rear. Is it possible that the front springs gotten squeezed with the time? I replaced front struts with tokico blue about 10K ago. The car also feels a bit stiff on the road, and I can feel even the smallest bumps.

Is it normal, or is there a way to check this?

Thanks,Andre.

[DAEDALUS]

Do you have a manual? It gives height to the topmost line of the wheel arch in the fender with the car sitting on a flat surface. You can measure that and compare to the FSM number. Did you replace all the rubber when you put the new Tokicos in?

[Q45tech]

The rear will compress with full fuel [22.5 x 6.2= 140 pounds divided by [123 x2= 246 rear stiffness per inch] 140/246= 0.57"

0.4" per hundred pounds of equally balanced weight in trunk.Back seat is about 90% on rear springs

Many early Q required the drivers weight in seat to look right as the left side stiffness [front and rear] is 246#/in.......lowering both about 0.5-0.6" for a 160# driver.

The drawing/specs for wheel arches in manual should be taken with a grain of salt!

Other than removing the springs and measuring the free height vs installed height and the actual stiffness..........or just replacing them with brand new ones...........one learns to live with it.

If you weight each of 4 wheel points with special scales you will see that the load is not perfectly distributed.

Do you want it to look even unloaded or loaded, you can't have it both with relatively soft springs.

[Q451990]

The drawing/specs for wheel arches in manual should be taken with a grain of salt!

No doubt... even my mother noticed the difference in distance between "Q1" and "Q2" when they were sitting side by side! Different tire sizes accounts for some of that, but the overall rolling diameter is about the same...

Heath