Quote:
Originally Posted by JRB135
Thanks for all the positive comments. Tomorrow I finally get to have the defective AST left front shock/strut replaced. I will let everyone know if this solves the problem. The current shock has turned to crap; the gasket that encapsulates the shock grease/oil came loose and the shock movement pushed it to the top of the strut. Now the oil that is supposed to stay in the shock housing has escaped and the shock squeaks so loud that you can hear it even when on the freeway. Anyway the guys at BR Racing are replacing it with a new AST 5100 shock tomorrow, and will send the failed one back to AST for failure analysis. Amazing considering that this car is never driven hard and has never been tracked with this setup.
J
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Please disregard all comments from the OP in this thread about ASTs.
I have found out after the fact that this particular install was very unusual. The OP has some kind of 20" wheels. These wheels/tires are so tall that they were interfering with the normal 7" long spring package we supply with 1 series 5100s. The shop that installed them used a 4" long spring instead, against the strong recommendations of someone here at Vorshlag, and it likely caused all of these problems. Without seeing the damaged strut yet its hard to say with 100% surety, but the 5100 grease seals don't just "fall out". We've sold and installed too many of these without issue.
This setup more than likely ran out of spring travel (imagine that, they took 3" of spring length out?), bottomed out the strut, and damaged the grease seal (among other things), knocking it loose from the strut housing. This then caused the squeaking issues.
In short -
massive installation error. The "AST design" is not at all to blame. Yet AST still paid to air freight a brand new strut in for this guy, at no charge. If his installer puts it back together with this 4" spring package it will likely do it all over again. This strut is not made for over lowered, 20" baller setups.
Best of luck,