Team-BHP - Scraping the Underside of my OHC

My City(1.5) is now officially 5 years old, and has 80K + kms on the Odo... and has fianlly started bottoming out.
I went for a wedding last night from Whitefield to Malleswaram with 5 people (driver, um, dad, me, 10 yr old sister) and the car scraped ABSOLUTELY EVERY speed breaker there. The ones in Whitefieldd I couldd understand, but it even scraped those mimi speed breakers around the city where it never used to, wth a much heavier load. Everytime the car went oh-so-slowly over any elvated area, the bottom would scrape for what seemed like ages...
I need advice - what the h*ll should I do to restore my cars height??!! Raising it even a bit makes it look soo wierd (has anyone ever seen the cars rear wheeel when its stationary? It looks unusually small and as if the rear suspensions been notched up a large amount...)...

Was considering getting a sheet of something made as a shield for the undercarraige...
Any suggestions?

I feel the pain brother. We have an OHC 1.5 too. 40K on the odo.
Went on a trip to Thirupati with 5 people and luggage. I really felt sorry for the car. Took the speedbrakers at 5 kph at an angle of 45 deg but no luck. The thing keeps scraping for 10 inches before it lets go. Dont think its has anything to do with the age of the car. Check to see if your bump-stop has'nt fallen off. Or just get bigger wheel/tire.

why dont you raise the height of the car..i mean when the car is fully loaded the shocks tend to go down..depending on the total weight.so its better to raise the front and rear ..i had this problem on my zen ..it got so low..so i got it raised up at the max possible height..

Solution One (cheaper): Put one inch thick aluminum (not rubber) spacers on top of the rear shockabsorber mountings with longer bolts. You can get them fabricated if u cant find any available.

Solution Two (recommended): All you need are new springs and shock absorbers! thats what has sagged from your original condition otherwise why would it scrape? :)

Thanks guys...
Autopsyche:was going to try that... now I need to covince dad about it... maybe play a recording of the scrapings on his iPod or somthing... hehe... any idea ow much both options would cost?

Freakrz: how much wouldd it cost to jack the height up...? And roughly how long would it take...?

Mpower: nope, still very much there... I tried the 45 degree thing too... absolutely no luck... heh... I was really planning to get spacers or something...

Will update you guys on the final decision. Thanks a million!!!

One problem with the OHC is that it's not really the under chassis that touches. It's usually the silencer that hangs much below the chassis which usually touches.

Check and see which part of the car has been touching, if it's the silencer then you'll just need to get that raised.

On my car, it's clearly a few inches below the under chassis.

Shan2nu

guys,
raising the height will simply mess up the handling.
see what has happened to the corolla.

if the OHC has done 80+k kms then instead of raising the height why dont u redo the entire suspension .maybe change the struts all round.

Yeah, talked to a Honda guy as well, he said that its advisable to get the entire suspension checked up... Shan, its not just the silencer box, I checked that first, though that has taken a pretty hard beating...

Dude, since u are planning to change ur springs.....might as well go for a slightly stiffer springs....!! That will improve ur cars handling......braking....as well as eliminate the bottoming....with 5 ppl in the car...!! Plus the OHC has got a very soft suspension and the car weight is also very little......so when u are 100kph+ the car goes over all the place....even on slightly uneven roads...!! U tend to loose a lot of control with very soft suspension...! Slightly stiffer suspension will do wonders...!

I dont think stiffer springs are needed unless youre a very very enthusiastic driver who only travels by himself all the time. From what you've mentioned, this car also ferries the family around, so I think a comfartable ride( read standard springs) will be better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jigarmuni

Totally agree....the car is severly undersprung and underdamped. Gets really wallowy at triple digit speeds. Iselro, ride quality will be stiff with driver only, but once you add people it'll settle down well. But any idea where I can get stiffer springs and shocks? Its got to be imported, I presume.

Quote:

Originally Posted by autopsyche

All you need are new springs and shock absorbers! thats what has sagged from your original condition otherwise why would it scrape? :)

One way to identify if the suspension has indeed sagged is to measure the height from the fender to the ground and compare it with similar but newer car. Make sure both cars have same size tires at same pressure.