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This has been bothering me for a little bit but have been busy with drivetrain and rear suspension so have let it go.. I'm running MR2 Koni yellows in the front with GC camber/caster plates.
My question is shouldn't the "articulating bearing" GC uses to locate the strut shaft move freely? I can't get mine to articulate/rotate to allow the shaft to rotate independently of the camber plate.. The result is that the strut shaft doesn't rotate when I turn the wheel. The GC site says that they use bearings but I can't budge the "articulating bearing" as they call it.
Below hopefully clarifies what I'm talking about:
In the pics above I have the plate moved to the top as I had things apart.. anyway you can see how the shaft orientation stays fixed relative to the camber plate with rotation. Since this is a bearing as per the GC link, I'd expect it to rotate freely and independently of the plate.
This should be the "articulating bearing" they refer to, but I can't get it to rotate or at all..
What about this am I not getting??
Last edited by Johnny_Cracker; 10-05-15 at 10:42 AM.
Reason: add link
the SA and FC rotate the shock piston stock, so its not a problem
Yeah I checked my stock FB strut mount and there's certainly a VERY easily rotated bearing in it allowing the strut shaft to rotate with the strut body like the SA, FC and most normal strut mounts do. This is why I'm concerned... while the articulating spherical bearing in my GC plate let's the strut shaft articulate smoothly up top, it doesn't allow it to rotate along with the rest of the strut assembly when the wheel is turned.
..Repeated rotating of the strut body when turning while the strut shaft is being held fixed up top by the GC plate can't help the longevity of my struts nor help with steering response any.
I gotta be missing something here though or I'd expect to have found more searching about this.
Anybody have these? Do your strut shafts rotate when you turn the wheel or does your GC plate hold them captive? ...I like the fancy articulating spherical bearings and all, but would be happier if they also let the strut shaft freely rotate. After all they weren't cheap and neither were the Koni yellow struts.
I'm risking being burned as a witch for heresy, but I'm feelin pretty let down by GC.
thats what i'm saying the SA and FC strut tops have a little D cut into them so the strut shaft is fixed, and does not turn.
and B, you'd think we would have noticed by now if the GC stuff didn't work, we've only been using them for 20 years...
Sorry man not trying to come across like a ***** or anything, and not saying the GC stuff doesn't work.. just trying to figure out if somethings wrong and I'm gonna ruin my struts. This is a hobby for me, I'm no mechanic so have no experience to pull from which is why I come to the forums to get help.
Apparently I misunderstood your post. So just to clarify your saying the SA and FC strut shafts are fixed in the mounts and that the mounts don't have a bearing in them to allow the strut shaft to rotate with the rest of the wheel, while the ones on my s3 FB do? Interesting..
Thanks for your help J9. Hopefully more people chime in on this. I know you're a forum guru but would like a little more input just to make sure, especially from FB guys.
I took some time to learn about different kinds of bearings in order to get a better understanding of what's going on in there... So GC's "proprietary spherical bearing" that locates the strut shaft top in these Ground Control camber plates is technically just a PTFE lined hydrostatic plain spherical bearing and is used wherever rotational motion must be allowed to change the alignment of its rotation axis. (Not sure what's specifically different in their design vs the other spherical bearings GCs bearing producer supplies other than seemingly restricted function.. )
So angling/articulating while rotating is exactly what my bearing should be doing but isn't. It's able to angle the alignment of it's rotational axis (with some effort), but I can't generate enough breakaway torque to induce rotational motion before the strut piston shaft starts rotating inside the strut body.
It seems pretty non-functional being as tight as it is and prohibiting rotation, so I removed the teflon lining material in order to relax the bearing a bit. I basically converted it to a metal on metal bearing that I'll need to oil every so often instead of "maintenance free" teflon never requiring lubing.
Here's the piece of PTFE/teflon material I removed from the outer race:
The bearing is completely free to articulate and rotate now. I tightened the plate down on the strut top and they now rotate independently. There's a little slop with the restrictive teflon material removed, but I'm gonna run it first and see if there's any noise.
I'm hopeful the reduced drag from not rotating the strut shafts inside the strut bodies will help take some of the vague suckiness out of the recirculating ball steering setup. At the very least I'll know the struts aren't prematurely wearing.. If it doesn't work and I fubard the bearing I should be able to remove the spring clip and press it out. I'm sure I can find an Aurora Bearing dealer for a suitable replacement.
As of now I'm gonna oil it up and try it out when I get the car down but that's gonna be a while
if you hold the nut with a wrench can you move the plate? can you articulate the plate side to side? (push down on one side and up on the other)
post a picture of the side view if you can so we can see how you've put it together.
Yeah it would articulate using the plate like that for leverage, but it was unable to rotate. Closest way to get it to rotate was a processional wobble. I certainly couldn't rotate it when pinching it between thumb and forefinger and using all my might. Why use such a stiff bearing when one of the benefits of their camber plates is moving the big axial load of the car to the needle roller bearing in the spring hat and not the shaft bearing?
I had a set on my last coilovers and didn't really like the dual bearing design, I felt like there was possible bind in the articulation of the spring hat on the camber plate, but I never experienced what you're seeing. I'm currently using AWR camber plates on my FC, they use 1 spherical bearing that's much larger to handle the load.
it sounds to me like they made the bearing tolerances too small and when they pressed the bearing in it's squeezing the entire assembly and lowering the tolerances. you can try replacing the bearing, but it's probably decent quality already. I doubt GC would use crappy Chinese bearings.
I had a set on my last coilovers and didn't really like the dual bearing design, I felt like there was possible bind in the articulation of the spring hat on the camber plate, but I never experienced what you're seeing. I'm currently using AWR camber plates on my FC, they use 1 spherical bearing that's much larger to handle the load.
it sounds to me like they made the bearing tolerances too small and when they pressed the bearing in it's squeezing the entire assembly and lowering the tolerances. you can try replacing the bearing, but it's probably decent quality already. I doubt GC would use crappy Chinese bearings.
Did your AWR plates fix your binding issue? .. And does their spherical bearing let the strut shaft rotate freely when turning the wheel??
I'm not sure if my GC plate was odd or they're supposed to be that restrictive. It's almost like the wrong gauge teflon liner was used or something making everything too snug.
Next I need to get the passenger side plate off and check it's rotation vs the driver's side (the one I already did).. IIRC before I put them on they were both tight. If it is I'll likely remove the liner in that one as well.
I'm happy with the plates overall, they're very sturdy without being too hefty and I have way more camber adjustment. Being able to get max caster for better straight line stability at speed was important too to combat wonder steer. I'm just a little bummed I have to mess with the bearing to get it to rotate considering the crazy money I shelled out.
the bearing probably was that loose, or close to it, but then the pressed it into a very snug camber plate and it pressed all the tolerances closer and made it tighter.
I'm not quite getting the issue here. New spherical bearings are tight and don't move very well by hand if that is what you aren't sure about.
I add roller bearings to coilovers with helper springs, sometimes those helper springs can make quite a bit of noise.
Last edited by GrossPolluter; 10-08-15 at 12:28 AM.
So I'm pretty convinced that they'll clack around with the teflon removed, so I removed the spring clip and pressed the bearing out.
I used my calipers to get some dimensions and ordered these bearings to replace them.
In case anybody needs to know what size they are, these (mine at least) are 5/8 x 1-3/16 x 1/2 inches (ID x OD x Depth) or .625 x 1.1875 x .500.
Will post about how these work out once I get em in.
If removing the Teflon liner causes freeplay, of course you will make a ton of noise. I think your over thinking it. Good spherical bearings are pretty darn tight.
You could redesign the top hat if you wanted to. I honestly don't think it's a very big issue.
If removing the Teflon liner causes freeplay, of course you will make a ton of noise. I think your over thinking it. Good spherical bearings are pretty darn tight.
You could redesign the top hat if you wanted to. I honestly don't think it's a very big issue.
Yeah I can get a little compulsive about details
From what I've learned though I'm not so certain bearing tightness is a measure of how good a spherical bearing is. Apparently spherical bearings are manufactured with varying break away torque values dependent on the intended load placed on them.
Aurora (the OEM GC spherical bearing supplier) says this about their spherical bearings "No load rotational breakaway torque can be varied to meet specific application requirements."Elsewhere I've found preloads for PTFE bearings to be as low as .432 INCH lbs which isn't much at all.
This makes me wonder why GC's "proprietary bearing" has such a high breakaway torque, especially considering they designed their plates to redirect spring load thru the plate itself rather than the central bearing. I'd have expected them to chose a bearing with lower breakaway torque appropriate for just the compression and rebound forces applied from the strut in this case... but I'm no engineer.
Hopefully Koni replies to my email about strut rotation relative to the strut body. If THEY say it's perfectly fine to keep the shaft bolted in place while the rest of the strut turns then all this bearing discussion is moot anyway.
I didn't want to dump a large sum of cash on them just yet since the verdict on whether lack of shaft rotation being bad or not is still out... With this in mind I ordered these as suitable replacements. (btw replacement bearings for the OEMs are any brand of "COM10" bearing. Google it and you'll find a bunch of different makes.)
First thing I checked was obviously ease of rotation and free play. They're snug enough to prevent any movement of the bearing in the race unlike my de-tefloned OEM one. Good thing, so that should address the noise issue that the modded stockers would likely cause.
Next I checked articulation and found them to bind a little at certain extreme angles.
I pressed one into the plate (having previously removed the snap ring and pressed the oem out) and reinstalled the snap ring. Thankfully my measures were on and the fit was identical to the original. I reinstalled the snap ring and confirmed the brass bushing fit (the brass bushing that reduces bore size down to Koni diameter and spaces strut nut up higher to keep it from being flush with bearing bore preventing articulation). It fit fine so I lubed it all up and set it aside. I have more rear end work to do before I get the car down and try them out though.
Knowing that the dimensions are correct I'd likely spring for some good US bearings. It didn't specify country of origin on the site but they ended up being hecho en Chine, and while they rotate and articulate nicely they could be smoother without any bind.
This makes me wonder why GC's "proprietary bearing" has such a high breakaway torque, especially considering they designed their plates to redirect spring load thru the plate itself rather than the central bearing. I'd have expected them to chose a bearing with lower breakaway torque appropriate for just the compression and rebound forces applied from the strut in this case... but I'm no engineer.
there is a reason GC uses a bearing with such a high load capacity, it is actually needed.
there is a reason GC uses a bearing with such a high load capacity, it is actually needed.
Really? Can you explain to me why then? I'm curious since it doesn't carry much load. ..Just trying to understand what's going on there.
FWIW Aurora's COM10 bearing is rated at 21280lb... the replacements I got are rated at 31,920lb. Low breakaway torque apparently has nothing to do with static load capacity rating. These new bearings not only have a higher rating but rotate much, much easier... I'm sorry man I'm just not seeing the down-side here.
Last edited by Johnny_Cracker; 10-16-15 at 09:55 AM.
There is also that part on the plate where the upper spring seat is round and meets the body of the camber plate. This is the same design as they have for many of their camber plates for Macpherson struts and it works with zero complaints on over 20+ installs I have done. Half of these cars go to the track ona monthly basis and are daily driven.
The only times we would get complaints about front suspension is from helper springs making noise. In those cases we add roller bearings.
Okay, so kudos to Koni for replying to my email so quickly.. Thanks Mason!
You guys were right, according to him the rotation of the shaft in the body won't cause any problems, but he goes on to say that once mounted there will be zero to little rotation in the strut body.. This means that the shaft normally rotates with the rest of the assembly, so a bearing that allows rotation (while not absolutely required) is probably preferred.
Here's their reply: "The piston shaft inside the cylinder is free to move and spin with no harm, or effect on the performance of the strut. Once mounted it does not matter where that rod is in relation to the strut body or rod spinning. Once attached at the upper strut mount the rod will have very little, to zero spinning inside the strut body.
Mason O’Hara
Technical Sales Represenative
KONI - an ITT company
So there it is.. I'll likely still replace the other bearing to keep things even. My oem strut mounts allowed rotation so I'm glad that these should now too.
There is also that part on the plate where the upper spring seat is round and meets the body of the camber plate. This is the same design as they have for many of their camber plates for Macpherson struts and it works with zero complaints on over 20+ installs I have done. Half of these cars go to the track ona monthly basis and are daily driven.
The only times we would get complaints about front suspension is from helper springs making noise. In those cases we add roller bearings.
Yeah I have no issue with that part of the plate, it works great and allows the spring and rest of the assembly to rotate nicely. It's the center bearing that the strut shaft mounts to that was bothering me.
Last edited by Johnny_Cracker; 10-16-15 at 09:57 AM.
Reason: sp
Yeah, I would have just stacked everything and bolted in with no spring , or with spring. Put the camber plate ona vice. If you can move the shock in all directions with no freeplay, then your good
When you get the bearings they can bea little tight, but once you use them they move more freely. Add long as there is no free play, your fine. Throw them on, align, and you'll be fine. Don't worry so much
10-05-15, 09:16 AM
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