Leaking Koni mystery deepens

[rj scotty]

I have replaced the suspected leaking koni on my near side front for a standard damper lent to me by Carl.
This has defiantly improved things but if a take a long right hand bend at say 40 ish I still get the sound from the nearside of what sounds like undampened action although nothing is felt.
With the standard damper fitted it is now fine around islands and in straight line
I have also tried braking slightly with the left foot when this happens to see if it goes away and it dose not kind of ruling out the wheel bearing.
Top mouts appear fine as dose anti role bar, track rods, ball joints, subframe mounts and wishbone bushes. The car has also had the alignment sorted today.

Although the car is fine to drive apart from this the mystery aspect is doing my head in

I also removed the other Koni today to compare against the suspect one, there is a difference in the feel of the two but not massively. The oil in the strut housing the good koni is defiantly not blue and there is not as much of it.

Hear is some shots:

This is what poured out of the suspect side. I assume koni oil is blue ?


This the oil in the good side, not as much and not blue.


Suspect shock, note blue oil in the slit around the body.


Alignment print out

[Error404]

who fitted the Konis Rich?

Some people use anti-freeze to lube the shock housing and prevent rust, also does not cause MOT failure if its visible on the strut

If it was used at the tiome of fitting the Konis (or before?) this might explain the blue colour?

Are you sure the shock was actually leaking? how many miles had they covered?

Cheers
Alex

[rj scotty]

Only done about 8000 miles, I fitted them and used a squirt of 3 in 1 oil on both sides.

Now I'm away from it I think I may be looking in the wrong direction sort of, What if the shock is leaking slightly but not enough to cause a problem and the fact that the problem has improved slightly with standard damper fitted is caused by the damper not being as stiff as the koni (set at 1 turn) ?

What is causing this sound

The koni in the pic above will be left upside down tonight to see if any oil comes out.

cheers

rich

[Error404]

I know konis have a reputation for leaking but only 8k miles sounds crap.

what noise are you getting?

[rj scotty]

To me it sounds just like a worn shock I only get it when taking a gental right hand bend at 35 mph up. With the koni fitted I got it bad on islands namley the rippled one by Asda minworth. Been round it today on the standard shock and all is well. Just getting it on gental right handers now.

[Flat on my back]

.

Jesh...what the f... is gouing on.

I do have another front damper but the top seal is fubar...also a set of Koni front dampers, dont really want to sell them as i got them at a good price.

Leaky Konis Error...hope not as my 90's done 000's of miles no prob.

Well...

[rj scotty]

A chance to thank you

Your damper is spot on mate, compress it and up comes like a standard damper should.
Has given a big improvement but not gone completely.

That tool is fantastic, as was the suggestion of leaving the strut on

cheers

rich

[Flat on my back]

.

Can you tell if the noise is front or back as cornering will compress both...i know it's a silly q. but its the silly things we overlook...

[rj scotty]

A very good point and one I will look into tomorrow.

It appears to be from the front but I will double check.

[rj scotty]

I have now swapped front wheels to back and there is improvement, slightly more testing will be done tomorrow with any luck this may be down to wheel balancing.

The question still remains is the koni leaking ? Dose anybody know what colour the oil in a koni is ?

At this rate I may just turn the stereo up louder and wait for something to brake

cheers

rich