hi, i had a saggy bottom on my diesel S3, the 2 year old springs looked sad.
so being too tight to buy new i made some aids. first a mug of tea.
1 find a pair of coil springs about 285-350mm long, jack up with damper upper bolt removed. stick 'em in behind axle and lower. if it looks ok, then it is!
2 find 4 bits of flat steel with 2 x 10mm bolts ea. about 100mm long. drill steel and clamp spring to top of leaf just behind axle, bend the steel to stop the spring bouncing out.
3 find 2 spring cups to fit spring, (in practise this is the difficult bit) I got a pair of old volvo ones, and a pair of mk 3 escort springs, they are about the same diameter,lower jacks, mark cup position, jack up, clean off chassis, lower, so cups tight on chassis.
4 weld spring cup, paint and underseal. refit damper bolt. tidy up.
5 Drink mug of cold tea.

at this point drive round to mate and admire pert bottom.

wtf was yer two year old springs made of? tin foil?

Go on then I've got to see some pics of that.
Also what does the MOT/insurance man say about them?

slob said:

wtf was yer two year old springs made of? tin foil?

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dunno, i have had 3 osr springs of standard type go on me.. and before you ask yes i have handed them as per manf intrs.

they seem to give up the ghost after i oil them to make them nice and supple.

has anyone thought of reducing the leaf to one or two full length leaves to locate axle and doing the weight bearing on coils , ideally fitted on top of the axle? i am sure they have.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...............

thats bin done but it a lot of work fer nowt

clivees said:

Go on then I've got to see some pics of that.
Also what does the MOT/insurance man say about them?

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dunno, mot next year so you'll have to ask then. i was towing over 2 tonnes last week and it kept it nice and tight. ok it was embarrassingly slow. 62bhp and 3.5t......... got undertaken on the hard shoulder of the M5.

Bet the tea was cold by the time you got to it.

Cabbie said:

Bet the tea was cold by the time you got to it.

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yes, it was cold. And full of underseal bits.Seriously though,took about 3 hours. i need to improve the bottom clamps a bit, other wise it works, hoorah!