Last updated:  2004.08.31

 ©  Text and Photo: Frode H. Haaland

 

Fitting Suspension Spacers

Vehicle: Discovery 1990

 

The wheel wells seemed a bit stuffed after fitting almost 31" sized tyres. Even if the larger tyres improved angles and height, a bit more of height to the vulnerable sills and the rear plough (also called "tow bar") would have been very convenient. My winch weighs in at ~40kg, its bumper ~35, the steering guard ~20kg, and track rod protector ~10kg. An excess of 100kg extra weight on the front axle has been installed during the last few months - compressing the front springs, thus reducing front clearance.

To lift the vehicle on its suspension, there's two options: taller springs, and pieces of metal fitted underneath the springs.

 

Spacers
As the springs were pretty new, it was out of todays order to fit taller springs - even if that would have been the best choice from an offroading point of view. Taller springs translates into better axle articulation - which spacer cannot.

On the other hand, spacers do not compress...which translates into less roll on the road. Spacers were chosen, not so much because of road manners as for the fact that these are very cheap.
Front and rears are supposed to be different. Front suspension has the dampers inside the springs, with the bottom mounting running through the axle bracket. If the damper is still kept in this position, you will loose 1" damper travel, as it is already "stretched" by 1". So the bottom mounting has to be lifted to the top of the spacers. A 3mm thick stainless steel plate with its proper holes reposition the damper to its new position. And due to the damper mounting through this plate, the spacer has to have a cavity for the damper spindle. Click on the drawing right to find the measurements for your own manufacturing!  

A tubing of aluminium rod was purchased, and a friend of a friend of mine drilled out the centre of the rod for front spacers, and on a lathe sliced it into 1" thick shiny, beautiful spacers.

As spacers are probably not legal in my area, the shiny metal was to be disguised... First painted with etch-primer, and then hand brushed to a pretty matte finished to match the underside of the vehicle and its suspension components.
Check these two Discoweb articles for information on fitting spacers : article#1 and article #2

 

Rear spacers
You need to remove the springs to fit the spacers. This means you have to lift the chassis onto axlestands, compress the springs using clamps, and then lower the axle to remove the spring and fit the spacers.
After chocking front wheels firmly, fitting the axle stands under the chassis, and removing wheels, the two bolts inside the spring, holding the spring onto its lower bracket, where removed.

It's a pig getting access, but as it was not too long since the springs were renewed, they shifted quite easily.
To compress the springs, it's easier to use the jack and lift the axle bit by bit, tightening the springclamps to take up the slack produced by the jacking. Don't forget the lot will take up one more inch height when refitting, so make a thorough compression.

Once satisfied, the axle can be lowered, and the spring removed. 

Careful not to strain the brakelines, as the rear axle will happily drop to the floor if not careful.
After cleaning everything with a wirebrush, I removed some rust, and coated the whole area with penetrating, rustproofing oil.

On this picture the black spacer can be seen as it is fitted under the lower spring mounting plate.

Fitting the spring can be pretty difficult, as the spring has to be compressed one more inch, but after some fiddling, you'll get there!
Then for the difficult part. There are three holes to align: The spring bottom mounting plate, the spacer, and the captive nuts on the axle bracket. It's a pig! You'll easily use one hour or more to get this aligned and fit the two bolts.

I found it easier to run a shorter bolt from the underside-up, i.e. through the captive nut and into the spacer to keep those aligned. With these two aligned, the next step is aligning the spring mounting plate with the spacer, trying to enter the bolts. I found it easier using a prybar to shift the plate, trying to fit one bolt first, and then aiming to get the next one in.

Trying to push the two bolts in, the two shorter bolts from below are carefully screwed out so the three items are always kept aligned.

Prepare for this to be a lenghty job - even more lengthy up front...

After fitting one side, at least the next rear was a bit easier.

 

Front spacers
The front end is more difficult, and I'm sorry to say my camera didn't work anymore, so you'll have to resort to imagination...

It's the same for the front as the rear end: Chassis onto axlestands, and axle on stand one side, jack on the side you're working.
Up front, the damper runs inside the spring, so the damper has to be removed as well as the spring. First remove the damper nut/washer/bush assembly under the axlebracket.

Then remove the damper turret - there's four bolts. On the LH side, you'll have to remove airfilter and turbohoses to get access. The retainer ring bolts easily snaps, so be careful if yours is old, having a spare at hand is of course useful.

Lift the damper/turret assembly out, and then fit the steel plate from the spacer set to the bottom of the damper, taking care to fit the bushes and washers the correct way around. Set aside, and now to removing the spring.
Firstly remove the the bolts holding the lower spring mount to the axle. Fit the spring clamps and use the jack to compress the springs while you keep the clamps tightened. It needs a fair amount of compression to fit the 1" spacers.

When satisfied, remove the spring; you might need to push the axle downwards by the hub to shift the spring out - or fit a jack between chassis and axle to lower the axle enough. There is barely enough space for an ordinary bottle jack, but a scissors-jack is excellent (see below). Clean/paint the spring cup and the axle bracket as necessary.
Fit the spacer onto the bracket - a nice advice might be to fit a shorter bolt through the captive nut from the underside to keep these two aligned.
Don't forget the turret retainer ring - it's useful to just enter a couple of nuts on top of the bracket to hold it in place, and forget about the turret until later.

Now you'll find it difficult to fit the spring as the spacer seems to be extremely thick...far thicker than at the rear. Reason is the front axle will not drop as far as the rear one.

If you have a scissor-type jack, that's the thing to use, but if you only have a bottle jack, you should be able to find somewhere to put it - there's not much strain for it to take. Using the jack to push the axle downwards, the spring+lower spingcup should go in quite easily. Remove the spring clamps by lifting the axle to take up all the strain imposed on the clamps.
Now refit the turret/damper assembly with its new bottom mounting plate. If yours is gas dampers, it's quite hard to push down the turret/damper assy, and still entering the retainer ring bolts, but you'll manage.
Now for the difficult part again: Fitting the bolts to fix the damper mounting plate + spring cup + spacer onto the bracket with its captive nuts. Here there's one more hole to go through, so it's even more difficult than at the rear. Lifting or lowering the axle will move axle forwards/backwards, to aid getting the holes aligned. A prybar under the axlecup also useful. It's very fiddly! Prepare for more than two hours each side up front!

 

Result
Having lifted the vehicle by one inch, the vehicle looks more balanced in the wheelarches. With the close to 31" tyres, it looks more like it used to be on the original 29" wheels.

But it is one inch taller, so if you did not check the height of your garage door before commencing the job, this is the time to do it...and update your memory on the height of your vehicle - it will be precluded from several carparks by now!

The job took a very long time, prepare for 8 hours for the four corners, but it was a cheap way of achieving a one inch lift. And next time springs are due, a +1" spring fitted on top of the spacers, will give you +2" lift, i.e. what you should have to take 32" tyres like 235/85-16.