suspension setup
Turbo Mini Forums

rite im probly sounding like i know nothing at this point but bear with me, im learning!

i believe my metro has hydroelastic suspension or sumthing??

the front of my car is very low compared to the rear, do the suspension units need to be recharged or sumthing every so often?

it has springs too rite, what can be done to these in the way of uprating? new struts and springs etc.

the metro has hydragas suspension, basicly the same as hydroelastic except the springing element is a nitrogen filled resovoir thing.

the rear units are connected together by a pipe and are fillable via a tyre type valve with hydolastic liquid (water and antifreeze)
the front units are seperate and fillable the same way. there could be several reasons the car has droped at the front, wear, faulty hydragas units, someone leting some fluid out....

I think as standard the suspension should have around 360 psi in front and 230 psi in the back, the later cars have a bit less in the front, there are some metro owners on here that will be able to correct this if i'm wrong.

as for uprating, if you want to lower the car rather than just letting ther fluid oput really you need to machine the struts down so the original pressure's can be run. on the front a pair of shock absorbers for a metro turbo can be fitted (early car's had shocks on the front, but the were left off most cars except the turbo).

The main thing I would (have) do is weld up all the subrame mounting bushes, fit some polly bushes to the front tca/rollbar links (these seem to wear alot), add the shocks and lower the car sensibly, 1-1.5" (depending what model it is)

one other trick used by motobuild was to remove the water based suspension fliud and replace it with citroen LHM fluid to provide a bit more stiffness.

sounds like the units need pumping up as mentioned.

there are no springs on the metro. the only metros with dampers were the ones with the full turbo style body kit(turbo, sport, gta etc). these also had a rear anti roll bar. the shocks used should be standard mini rear if i remember correctly.

Yes, indeed the front shocks on a metro are mini rear items, I once fitted adj spax to the front of an (NA) MG Metro and it transformed it.

so how (easily) can the suspension hydrogas be recharged or refilled. is it a job for MG garage or does sum one have a unit to do this?

I think all i want to do is get both the rear and front hydrogas units refilled with the citroen LHM fluid u say for a bit of stiffness and get it to a level i am happy with.

If i wanted to let pressure out of the back units what would i do this with? there is a tool im guessing.

so the front shocks on a metro (inc TURBO?) are same as the rear shocks on a mini.

on that note im off to look for mini rear suspension shocks.

TOM did u have to modify much, mini 13 says sumthing about welding up subframe mounting bushes ?cheers

pumping up the suspension is a 15min job, providing you have the special pump. some Rover dealers have these as the also used the hydrospastic syspension on the MGF

to let the fluid out just push the centre pin ( looks like a tyre valve) use finger or screw driver but the fluid is at heigh pressure and will spray all over you!!!

that mite be quite refreshing in this weather! :cool:

you can knock a pump up using a grease gun. details under suspension on this link.

http://www.austinamericausa.com/

also, the front shock mountings are a bit flimsy, if adjustable shocks are used they have been known to come away if set too high.

No modification needed, they bolt straight on.

Yes toms right the shocks will bolt straight on,

I wish i'd realized they were the same as mini shocks when I had a metro!!!

The front subframe is mounted on 4 large metalastic bush things, although you don't have to I liked to weld these up, basicly the same as solid mounting a mini subframe.

the rear subframe has two rubber mounting things on the front edge and two rubber bush things on top, I had one of the front mountings fail once so I always welded them up after. if you weld these up you need to replace the rubber bush at the top rear of the subframe with a solid spacer otherwise the frame will flex the frot sumframe mounts and crack the body.

Can you guess I have a bit of a thing for solid mounted subframes??

you luv em by the sounds of it!
spot on for the info,