I was contacted by a friend with a 29 dodge who was changing front brake pads and when he jacked it up it looked like the top of the shock on the coil overs were off. I went over and took a look and sure enough, not one but both shocks had the threaded top back off and come off. Looks like it was that way for a while. This was part of a Heidts IFS kit put on in 2006 and has never been touched or altered. The shocks were serviceable Aldan American brand. Replaced them with QA1 shocks and good to go now. Told him he was very lucky. Haven't found anyone who has ever seen this happen and hopefully never see it again.
Well didn't look under/at the car for 18 years? Bravo. The ends or "faces" of a coil spring rotate slightly when compressed; those coil over ends were probably never really tight. I see one shock's adjuster way different from the other, that happen too?
Have no idea how much he looked at it, I only get called when there is a problem. The adjusters got moved during disassembly, I know they were the same as of a couple years ago. Due to the spring coils with load on them, there is only a 1/2" window to see through, so I'll cut him some slack on a visual inspection. New style springs look like they have half the amount of wraps on them. If it takes another 18 years to fail, at 83 I ain't fixing it !
That is not an uncommon failure on rebuildable style shocks. Normally it occurs when the builder (or rebuilder) forgets to properly loc-tite the threads or stake the tube during assembly. It doesn't take long for vibration to walk the caps off. The scarier situations are when you hit something so hard that the oil pressure within the shock blows the top seal ring off, even on a welded non-rebuildable shock, or when the designer screws up and the suspension pulls the shock apart during rebound events.
What I did notice was a ton of anti-seize on the threads, nothing as far as loc-tite. Probably a Monday morning assembly job way back when.
The Jalopy Journal
