Thanks I’ll give thrussington a bell
I did ask if you had assembled these with NA top mounts or NB top mounts, and I got a reply that suggested I said to bin the shock absorber.
Photo here of worn versus new;
Probably not the reason, but you won’t let a professional look at the car. As suggested, take it to Thrussington Garage/MCR in East Goscote. If you book the car in, they can give you a loaner, albeit a C1 covered in MX5 race livery.
You’ve asked a question on a forum while only furninshing partial information. You say it sounds like a loose adjuster ring but they are tight. But is it the spring rattling against the perch? You’ve probably lowered the car. Are the springs preloaded? Did you check, when the arm is at full droop that the spring is still tight? If it moves, it will rattle. Wind up the adjuster a bit or live with it. You can get rubber isolators from Tein etc for under £10 a pair. Preload is also why some cheap shocks have a helper spring, so you can go hella low. And also why some makers come up with the wheeze of adjustable shock length; take a generic, one size fits all strut cartridge, add a thread to it, and a machined lower eye part, and call it an innovation (an itty bitty Japanese maker came up with this idea).
Here’s the thing with adjustables; you think you have an infinite range of adjustment because of all that thread you have. But its really determined by the spring that is specced. And really, there is only a small amount of height adjustment, all of it compromised around a single height setting determined by the free length and rating of the said spring. Not enough preload (the perch set too low) and the spring will rattle. Too much preload, and the ride is too stiff for your spine.
The adjustable length shocks (typically Chinese, because they are trying to use as many generic bits as possible so they are cheap) allow the preload to be set by the factory, and the user set the length. But then they get into trouble with shock travel, so you end up with some marketing-friendly fancy top hat, with yet more failure points. Which doesn’t matter as the springs on these Chinese shocks are made of chocolate (seemingly) and fracture after only a few 10’s of 1000 of miles. The weight of these dual perch designs is much higher than conventional coilovers (I wonder if my Protecs being aluminium has contributed to the springs lasting an incredible amount of time, been in since 2008). The Meisters I had were pretty hefty…
Entertaining thread where a “manufacturer” decides to chip in with some cut and pasted pictures on a thread that isn’t about his shocks, but ties himself up in knots when confronted with a few people who do know what they are talking about. And then the Fanbois wade in. And for the record, customs records prove these shocks did come from BC in Taiwan, but have now switched to some Alibaba maker in mainland China, HQ’d in Hong Kong.
The Gaz shocks are good shocks, and they have genuinely talented in house engineers, rather than farming that work out. Thinking about it, I think you need to think about how you have set up the shocks. If you’ve set it to about factory height, then all my words are bunk. But most people fit these to lower the car, and they are supplied with springs that allow it to be lowered, but there is a limit.
Sorry ast the reply were I said about binning the shocks was meant for Mazdamenda as that was his suggestion, and not a very helpful one.
This thread is very long and all of the information is in it I think and yes it’s pretty much factory height I’m fifty years old and not interested in having her silly low, I took your advice and I have contacted thrussington already.
Thank you for your advice much appreciated and sorry for any confusion.
They are on na top mounts I don’t have much money so I try to do things myself first, I’m no idiot and work alongside engineers machanics and fabricators all day at my work, im an automotive fabricator by trade so when the old gal starts to rust im not fazed, no idiot but no machanic either. Thank you again