Lowered 911

[NE Ohio 911]

I am a new owner of a 1984 Carerra. I do not have a manual yet but will get one soon. I just raised my car to do some exhaust work. I raised it on the bottom of the motor. I realized I needed to get the drivers rear wheel off so I then raised it on the suspension arm near the rear shock. When I lowered the car it was no longer sitting at its lowered ride heigth. What did I do? How do I lower the height to where it was? The car was lowered with factory adjusters.

[DarinB]

My guess is that if you didn't do any adjusting that you just need to get out and drive it and it will settle back down to where it is supposed to be. Mine does that, too.

[Rick V]

Completly normal for almost all cars. It will settle back down in about 20 feet.

[Nine9six]

Hmmm,
That may be indicative that a suspension refresh may be in order. How many miles are on the clock? Shocks s/b changed out every 75K mi. More frenquently for more agressively driven vehicles.

[ben parrish]

Drive it to the end of your driveway and it will be better...perfectly normal. It doesn't indicate anything is wrong.
Ben

[NE Ohio 911]

Thanks for your responses. Aftter I wrote the post I went out and pushed on the rear bumper a few times and that did the trick. Just a case of new "older" car paranoia. According to receipts, shocks only have about 6k on them. Got to get a manual!

[Facey]

i don't think that indicates old shocks at all...i think it means newer ones....as when i had my old ones in my car never did that...and when i put in the blisten sports (less then 5000km) it does it every time...and takes a good romp it sit back down .... or at least thats my excuse...

[ben parrish]

Facey, spot on. Old shocks will have little resistance and allow the car to settle back down more easily. Once new shocks are extended, the take some wiggle and bounce to settle back down.

[masraum]

It's not the shocks, it's the geometry change that happens when the suspension goes to full droop. When you pick the car up the suspension hangs, when the suspension hangs the tire rotates towards the centerline of the car. When you let the car down the tire contacts the ground closer to the center of the car than it would be if it was flat. Because the tire can't slide to the outside once the car weight is on it the car sits higher. If you had 2 smooth metal plates with grease in between and the tire set back down on those plates, the tire would be able to slide to the outside and would settle right away. New shocks might affect it some, but the main factor is the geometry.

[DarinB]

Good explanation. That makes sense.
Darin

[ben parrish]

Masraum, great explanation. Some times, people want to jump the gun and try to analyze things to death..me included.