Folks,

One thing that surprised me when I stripped the 400's suspension was just how badly worn the knife-edges seem to be, given that the van's probably only done 77k km from new.

They've clearly been slathered with grease regularly - going by the fact that you could barely see them under there - but cleaning up in petrol showed the real situation...

Rear are worse than front - not a great surprise, since the back was adjusted very high, with considerably "pre-load" on the springs even with the arms on the bumpstops.
NSR


It's not just the front edge of the pin, either.
OSR

What the photos don't show well is that one side of the ring is worn, too - but only the rears. What I didn't note was whether it was the inside or outside that was worn. It's worse on the offside


Fronts aren't immaculate, but are considerably better.
NSF


OSF



(All the above photos are clickable for bigger piccies)

All those are within acceptable wear tolerances? Drill, tap, and grease nipple? Does make you wonder quite how shagged they get after a hard use!

Also...
Is it worth thinking about replacing the spring cans? They're really rather battered, and new ones are stocked and relatively cheap... as long as I don't start thinking about replacing all the end caps, too...

Those pics make me think that the word "sacrificial" is appropriate here, especially if you consider knife-edges as service items?

They look ''pretty'' normal to me. Getting the gease to stay on the contact surfaces is near impossible. The only thing to do is to either tap and fit grease nipples and/or except to replace every 10 years or so.

Why go to the bother of fitting grease nipples? how hard is it to actually remove that pin and grease it every service? at least the grease gets to the contact point that way, if you fit a nipple it'll just squeeze out the sides, not the pivot point.

I'd replace those with new and keep them maintained.

Remove the exhaust and all four dampers. Then lose the suspension height adjustment as you back the tierods off far enough to be able to get the pins out...



Would it? Or would it just be pushed out the other side as you re-inserted the pin?

I don't think it will. The pin is such a slack fit through the shackle, it's quite possible to refit the pin without wiping all the grease out of the shackle.

I'm not sold on this grease nipple idea. I don't like the idea of drilling holes in the shackle, it takes such huge shock loadings, and it's not even slightly hard to take the pin out. You don't even have to undo anything, just jack the car up and pull the pin out. If you fit grease nipples to the shackles, you still have to jack the car up, what are you actually achieving by doing it? possibly weakening the shackles to save 5 minutes every service?

Adrian,
I've probably suggested this previously, over on the 2CVGB forum, but one of these will do the job.
< http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sealey-Needle-Nos ... 286.c0.m14 >

Check out the part number, btw. I'd say one of these is a 'must have' for you...


At the Cheltenham World Meeting, I bought some felt washers off a Finnish guy and with one of those fitted at either side of the shackle, greasing is easy and long life of the knife edges and shackles follows.

ken

<chuckle>

Indeed.

Right, that's added to the "I must get round to ordering..." tool list.

Just another point, I don'thave the experience of some on here, BUT, of all the cars I've taken to bits and lowered, or just taken to bits, I've not seen a forged shackle break (I'm sure they can though). I've seen at least 3 of the two piece ones with cracks in. I used dye penetrant when I check them and not found any cracks in the one piece type.

ask beards dad about broken suspension eyes? I always carry a couple of spares when touring to wm