Got the TVR out of the garage today to check it over before the TVR show this weekend ooop Nooorth....

And one of the coilovers is leaking.... after taking it appart and cleaning the muck off...it appears to be a very old spax unit with adjustable damping....

Quite a bit of oil has leaked out from the damping knob....

The adjustable damping still seems to work... so I assume there must still be some oil inside...

However.... I cant get replacement dampers for a couple of weeks..... Can I just ignore the leak and drive the car?


Is there anyway of stopping the leaking?


And what is the proper tool for compressing coilover springs? The big claw type spring compressor I have is far to big and doent hold the spring properly....

Aslong as you drive calmly a leaking shock won't be dangerous. Try cleaning it and taping it or something. It might do something temporary. With coilovers you can just lower the bottum cullar until the spring is loose.

well I am not shock epxpert but even if there is no oil, you can still drive albeit no damping - the corner may get a bit bouncy.

also due to no lubrication, I suspect the dampe may get hot and damaged but it sounds like there still is some oil in there.

I can't see it coming apart on you though.

You could drill a hole in the side and fill up with oil then weld up the hole ensuring that no MIG wire enters into the bore - or maybe from the top?

Have you tried to pump oil into the shock via the ajuster hole?

It has fixed spring seats being quite an old design... hence problems with compressing/uncompressing the springs....

The piston is worn out anyway... so a bit of lubless work isnt going to make it any worse... I think I need to get a new set...

Will just have to drive slowly.... looks like its going to be raining anyway which will slow me down...mainly because the car will quickly fill with water and then the windows will steam up!

Hmmn, I'd clean the coilovers up and see if they're user serviceable.

I have a set of AVO coilovers (AVO and Spax have very similar internals) that come apart with a pin spanner, once you screw the cap off you can refill with oil, replace the "UFO" shaped seal and re-assemble.

I've never had anyone give me a proper answer regarding how much oil to put in but I suspect the: fill it up, assemble loosely and cycle up and down until it pukes out the excess, then remove an additional cc or two for good measure (you don't want too much or bad hydraulic things can happen on full compression) method would work -- failing that, measure what comes out of the non leaking one on the other side.

Shock oil can be had from motorcycle shops (the new synthetic stuff is said to be best), AVO will sell you the UFO seals for a few pence. The rest of the internal seals in my AVO's are similar to metal piston rings and didn't need replacing in my case -- if they're worn out I'd imagine the rest of the shock has had it as well.

Cheers, Ted

Thanks ted... thats quite useful..

Had another look at them this evening...


The pistons are badly scored... and the bodies have some very nasty scratches/gouges on them... I think they are overdue being replaced..... as soon as I have saved up enough cash I will get myself a set of good ones....

Rather annoying that I cant do that before the TVR show this weekend and stonleigh the following...