Happy new year to all of you! I have my car in my garage on jack stands at the moment as the rear shocks are out for Dave’s super shock mount with rubber upgrade. I took the actuators off of the shockabsorbers, also the front ones and it seems like the plastic toothed gear inside them is a bit loose. I can wiggle them with a small screwdriver. Is that normal? I have not had any suspention light until recently. And I can’t say that the suspention firms up alot either when the SPORT mode is activated, although the other funtions work. Another question, when putting them back on the shocks, is it neccesary to turn the splined top valve to far clockwise or anticlockwise position?? What is soft and what is hard? Or is the actuator made so that it «self-adjust» every time you turn the ignition on? While the car is up in the air, I also removed all the plastic covers inside the wheel wells and cleaned everything. I found out that the car becomes a lot easier to work on with these off. Especially changing catalyzers which I did without taking off the covers a few years ago. That was a real pain to do. New fuel filters are also going in, and I hope to have the car back on the road late next week. A Cadillac will be hard in comparison now Great improvement for the small roads along the sea here in France. The noise have become quite intrusive from the rear of the car during the past years, so I will also put new lower shock bushings in. These can be moved by my fingers, so I suspect they are worn and that this is the reason for the noise. I will also change two upper inner bushings and one ball joint up front. I get parts on my door from Superformance in the UK which I have been reccomended over the other store in the same country. Better prices and better service! And everything was in stock. Great! There are also two big orange air hoses going up from the side undertray air intakes up to what looks like inside the fuel tank compartment. What are they for?? Ventilate the fuel fumes If any? And where is it exiting? And I have a engraved number behind the left shock cover. It is not the chassis number. So what is it? Thanks for advice! Team Azur V12 Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Erik- That is the part number for that panel. Look in Table 103 part number 13 of the parts catalog. Amazingly, still available.
Yes That is normal, doesn't really make much difference at normal speeds Just put them on, they self adjust every time you start the car.
I got Superformance lower shock absorber bushings here now. They look different from the parts diagram from both Eurospares and Ricambi America... But they have the same part number. What am I missing here? Looks like I need to take out two zeiger rings to take it appart, but the ones I got looks to be a push through style of bushing. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I had the new lower shock bushings pressed in today. Easy job. In the Eurospares parts diagram, there is a ball joint in the original bushing. But the way I understand that original «bushing» is that it is solid, but with a ball in the center. And the rubber on each side, is just to compensate for the outer sides movements of the ball in the center. That means actually that the lower wishbone arm and the shocker is boltet solid to each other with no rubber cushioning at all in between. My mechanic who pressed the old ones out said they were in perfectly good condition. As I had already got the new ones from Superformance which are different, I thought my old ones were bad as I could move the center cylinder (where the bolt go through) with my fingers before I left them the shocks to my mechanic to have new ones installed. That is of course because the ball joint inside make that movement possible. The new one is a more simpel design. It is like a normal bushing where you have about 1 cm. of rubber in between one big outer and one smaller diameter inne cylinder. Which must give a great deal of shock absorbing and reduce harsh road noise. So this might be a very easy swap to make the 550s have less road noise..... I can not believe that Ferrari have no vibration cushioning at all for the suspention. Not at the top, and not at the bottom either!!! Will be very interesting to see how the car rides now with cushioning with the new bushings at the bottom and David’s new super mounts at the top! I also checked all four shock actuators. They all turn two times to the right, two times to the left and one time about half the way to the right again. I filmed them with my phone in «slow motion». Still a suspention light.
The actuators wheels do feel slightly loose inside the housing. the light is on because They are not currently attached to the dampers. if they don’t feel the end point of the valve on each damper then they report the fault. You should carefully check the teeth to ensure that none are damaged.
