soft rides

Well all you guys were right, the soft ride shocks are finally fitted and what a difference! Comfort and no loss of roadholding, but what a bitch of a job, crushed knuckles, seized nuts, upset neighbours with all the swearing and furious bashing of previously pristine socket set, speaking of which in desperation I bought from Screwfix , an Ebauer damaged nut and bolt set for 12.99 it was not metric but the 9/16 hammered on the 15 mm shock bottom bolt , and with 3 ft breaker bar shot off. Recommended.Sy

Nice work Mr Sylas,
I love my softer shocks, top nuts were a bitch to undo, had to grind three of them off, borrowed my mates DeWalt impact gun to do last one by the petrol pipes, it came off after a bit of impacting!

Sundance

Hi Sundance, yes until someone invents a deep socket that allows an allen key to still hold the bolt, it is hard to see how you can undo the one under the ecu cos there is no room for a spanner, I had to drill mine off!

Such a tool does exist, it's difficult to describe, I have one for adjusting automatic transmission bands, the same principal would easily apply to shock absorber nuts, in fact I've used it for that very purpose when
I've been lucky enough to to have had shocks with the same size stems and nuts.
I'll have a look for it tomorrow and take a pic,

Electric impact wrenches work quite well on jobs like this or I have a "pass through" socket set.

Can you advise what soft ride shocks you fitted and the approx cost of this solution. I am trying to sort out an annoying creaking noise coming from the front OS corner on a 2003 TF and if it turns out to be the shocks i would like to soften up the harsh ride. Regarding this noise, i replaced the recently fitted new wishbone thinking it was that, but a week later the noise came back.
Thx, Nigel

I fitted a new set of LE500 shock absorbers, sourced from MGFnTFbitz.
I also replaced the springs, but fitted a reconditioned set of original springs. The result is a more comfortable ride, but still maintains some of the sporty stiffness of the original handling. This was the setup that was recommended to me by Darren Hardy at Bitz.
The springs were an original set that were shot blasted and powder coated. They have sets in several colours available.
The springs are easy enough to swap over onto the shock absorbers, just get the order right for the spacers and bushes etc.
Suggest you buy or borrow an impact gun to undo the top nut if you replace them yourself, an easy job if the nuts undo ok. Also a good idea to replace all nuts and bolts with new OEM spec ones.

Sundance

I bought soft rides from Martin Smith mg spares www.usedmgspares.co.uk for 465.99 inc 4 new bottom bolts and next day delivery, very good service, had I known I would have added 4 top nuts as well. Sy.

Rimmers have got brand new unused MY2005 soft ride for £420, I think they own some of the tooling.

Thank you all for the info on where to source soft ride shocks. This will be one of the winter jobs on my list.
Nigel