anthonym Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 R500 K series year 2000I have had road type Nitrons fitted and the fronts have play in the sleeves top and bottom. A distinct clack clack when lifted and released, wheels off the ground.It seems there are metric and imperial sleeves. I have metric fitted and I have imperial recently delivered, with lower bolts. The bolts are imperial, hex.I have aero wishbones.Previously I had standard fit original Bilsteins. These are hanging on my wall. At least one sleeve remains in place, locked solid.Does anyone know exactly which sleeves should be fitted?Before I start experimenting.Anthony.Swiss m.o.t. Tomorrow, so that will be interesting, been preparing the car for three days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7 wonders of the world Posted October 1, 2019 Share Posted October 1, 2019 Ditch all the old bushes and sleeves and rose joint them, and while your at it powerflex all the bushes in the wishbones, this way you rid the front suspension of all the parasitic stiction and free up the srpings and dampers to correctly fulfill their role without interference from the torsional loading of metalastic bushings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SM25T Posted October 1, 2019 Share Posted October 1, 2019 You have to stick with imperial bolts as you have imperial threads in the wishbones and mounts. If the bores of the imperial sleeves are a closer fit on the bolts, then you should use these. Use Copaslip to prevent corrosion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon.Rogers Posted October 1, 2019 Share Posted October 1, 2019 I have not experienced any issue with the metric/imperial sleeves at the front.5/16th bolt is 7.93mmAn 8mm bolt will be aprox 7.9mm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted October 2, 2019 Author Share Posted October 2, 2019 I just spent a happy evening measuring bolts and sleeves. It seems there are significant tolerances involved, unless my measuring device itself is cheap and nasty (Aldi), but the wiggle test ultimately proved the differences, here is my list of brand new unused sleeves measured inside and out and inside at each end.The original bolt is black, the new is silver.Sleeves 9 to 12 are top mount sleeves. 6 and 2 are my selection for use. Very little wiggle and largely inaudible, unlike others.The lone grubby sleeve was in use until this year, since the Nitrons were fitted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted October 4, 2019 Author Share Posted October 4, 2019 the bush telegraph tells me mankee had the same trouble and had some made locally to match the bolts, so I am off to explore my local engineering facilities (thanks mankee). expertise/mot today if I turn up at the right time this time - but pass or fail on this they need fixing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garybee Posted October 4, 2019 Share Posted October 4, 2019 Some of those are really poor at close to 0.2mm/8 thou'. Internal bores of that size are difficult to measure accurately without pin gauges, are you using digital calipers or something else?What material are you intending to have them manufactured from? I'm guessing these bushes sit within spherical bearings so there is no significant load on the bushing due to alignment? Any reasonable lathe will get you down to the 2-3 thou range so it shouldn't be difficult to find someone to make them, particularly as ID/OD concentricity isn't critical. If I were machining them I'd probably want the bolts to hand to get a good clearance. I don't have pin gauges in my workshop though. I mention this in case you decide to send them away to someone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted October 4, 2019 Author Share Posted October 4, 2019 Digital caliper from Aldi.These are the sleeves that fit top and bottom of the front shocks.What is your opinion of the two I have selected to try? Nos 2 and 6, as in whether they may suffice? I fear in thsi application the amount of play desired is none, and there is a bit though nothing like the noisy rattle of many of the others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garybee Posted October 4, 2019 Share Posted October 4, 2019 Digital caliper from Aldi.The cheap digital calipers are generally very accurate in my experience. I've tested a few against slip gauges and always found them to be pretty much bang on. For internal measurements of small bores however calipers are far from ideal. Generally any errors would give you a dimension that was smaller than the actual size though (unless you were heavy handed) so the chances are that your bushes may well be a worse fit than it appears. These are the sleeves that fit top and bottom of the front shocks.Yep, understand that, must have phrased my question badly. In the ends of the shock (where these bushes fit) is there a spherical joint or a rubberised bush? There must be something to allow some misalignment of the bolt through the suspension travel (as the suspension doesn't move through an axis that is perfectly perpendicular to the bush and isn't infinitely rigid). What is your opinion of the two I have selected to try? Nos 2 and 6, as in whether they may suffice? I fear in thsi application the amount of play desired is none, and there is a bit though nothing like the noisy rattle of many of the others.As it's not something that I've had any issues with and I'm not able to see the car myself I'm not sure I'm in a good position to advise. I think there may be something else going on here still and maybe the play is being incorrectly attributed to the bushes. I wouldn't expect even the worst of them to cause the level of noise you describe. In the interest of confirming the measurements do you have an 8mm drill bit (or other accurately ground part) that you can try in the bushes? If not, does the bolt in your picture feel like an interference fit in the end of the bush that measures 7.82mm? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted October 4, 2019 Author Share Posted October 4, 2019 No it doesn’t. Close, but no.those bolts are 8.34 and 8.29 ( see top of that handwitten page) ho ho, so should not fit at all.an 8mm drill very good idea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted October 4, 2019 Author Share Posted October 4, 2019 Ok, 8mm drill bit. My selected two are .. very slight wiggle. All the others a bit more. The two bolts are more again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted October 4, 2019 Author Share Posted October 4, 2019 Have to admit being a bit gutted today, Swiss mot failed the car because I have Nitrons fitted and rejected the certificate of conformance from Nitron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garybee Posted October 4, 2019 Share Posted October 4, 2019 I believe you're reading the micrometer incorrectly. The bolt you're measuring in the picture is (just over) 7.83mm diameter. the graduations on the frame side of the sleeve are 0.5mm each. The thimble on those style micrometers does 2 full turns per millimetre. It confuses lots of people, whenever I task one of the lads at work with using a manual mic' I end up showing them how to read it. And they're being paid to know that I had a suspicion that you'd find the bushes were larger than you'd measured too. Don't be disheartened, It's pretty much impossible to measure such a small bore with a caliper. Those two issues are why I asked you to try a drill bit as a pin gauge, I suspected we'd find what you did (thanks for going along with it).that means the tolerances between the bolts and bushes are far worse than we thought. Much more believable now that that would be your issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garybee Posted October 4, 2019 Share Posted October 4, 2019 Missed your last post while I was typing. That's disappointing. I have no knowledge of how the Swiss MOT equivalent works. What was the reason given, non standard fit or something about the Nitrons themself? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted October 4, 2019 Author Share Posted October 4, 2019 Simply not authorised in Switzerland. Nothing wrong with them. I’ve written to Nitron so we will see what unfolds.I’ll see if. I can follow your mic tuition as a form of therapy. Thanks for your patience.the drill bit was genius. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garybee Posted October 4, 2019 Share Posted October 4, 2019 Happy to be able to help and best of luck with Nitron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted October 4, 2019 Author Share Posted October 4, 2019 Thanks , I’ll update this - hopefully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferrino Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Curious what the outcome of this sleeve experiment was, please? Did you end up have some custom made to tighter tolerances? I'm also fitting Nitron dampers and have currently ordered Caterham sleeves... Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 Never solved it, car is due complete rebuild so will address it then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7 wonders of the world Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 FerrinoWhy not take the oppertunity to ditch the stiction laden bushes and allow the new dampers to work freely and correctly by mouting them on spherial joints..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 What are those? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7 wonders of the world Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Have a look atthe photos on this link,more commonly referred to a Rose jointshttps://www.nitron.co.uk/files/nitron_coilover_14-40_brochure.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonym Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 Ah, I think I purchased a couple of those a few weeks ago.I'll find them tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferrino Posted January 5, 2020 Share Posted January 5, 2020 7 wonders: Nitron dampers come with spherical joints, not rubber ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7 wonders of the world Posted January 5, 2020 Share Posted January 5, 2020 Then curious as to why you've ordered Caterham sleeves since the Nitrons are supplied with the correct top hats for your application...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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