DIY Installation: Suspension spacers on my Tata Indica Vista

My father-in-law mentioned that the car gets a tad bouncy over undulations at high speed, but nothing that made him nervous.

BHPian Clayton Crasto recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

My In-Laws and I took a trip during the Ganesh Chaturthi weekend to the Amboli Ghats in our 2010 Indica Vista Quadrajet. We wanted to avoid police check posts at the Goa-Maharashtra border as much as possible, so we took internal roads from Colvale right up to Banda village. The roads were quite bad with many over-sized speed breakers causing the car to scrape terribly due to full load. We later realized that it was the jack mountings that were hitting the ground as they appear to be quite low. Despite all the scrapes (which were felt pretty bad by the ones sitting at back), the car did not suffer any damages at all!

My father-in-law later decided that it was best to install spacers beneath the coil springs. We planned to do it by ourselves last Sunday.

Tools used:

• Car Jack.
• 2 Nos. x Stand Jacks.
• 16 mm Ring spanner.
• Adjustable spanner
• Impact Driver.

My FIL got these Titan Stand Jacks from Industrialbuying.com, which are of great quality. From my understanding, Titan tool kits were supplied in the Maruti 800. My mom still has the kit and after 24 years, not a single tool has corroded.

The jack mounts that kept hitting the ground during our trip:

The Titan Stand Jacks along with pricing info:

20 mm Rubber Spacers which he had purchased from an FNG in Vasco long ago:

We fitted each spacer using different methods.

Preparations:

1. Park the car on levelled ground and engage the handbrake.
2. Loosen the wheel nuts on one wheel and raise the vehicle on one side by placing the car jack under the torsion beam (this is not actually recommended due to the curved shape of the beam, however, we had to place the stand jack on the actual jack mount) - and then place the stand jack. Ensure that the jack is placed securely in the correct place. The Indica Vista has designated mounts for the jacks which I have not seen on any other car.
3. Remove the nuts and the wheel, while leaving the car jack under the torsion beam for double safety.

Method 1 (not recommended):

1. Loosen the bolt at the bottom of the damper. This was a really cumbersome task and took us nearly 20 mins just to get it loose. We had to use the impact driver here and managed to loosen it after continuous hammering and some bolt slippage.
2. Remove the bolt and free the damper and then release the car jack that was placed under the beam.

After doing this, we tried to release the coil spring from the mounts, but it would not budge, due to the load acting on the beam from the other wheel. Hence, we had to release the other damper as well. Good thing my FIL decided to buy a pair of stand jacks!

We repeated steps 2 & 3 from the Preparations section. Here we realized that the damper could be loosened by removing the nut on the top, i.e. inside the boot. This was a much easier method.

Method 2

1. Remove the rubber cap from the top of the mount and loosen the nut. This is a very easy process as the nut itself is not tightly fitted.

P.N: The damper bolt itself will start turning once the nut is loose, so please counter turn it using an adjustable spanner.

2. Remove the damper and then release the car jack that was placed under the beam.

With both dampers now loosened, the coil springs will easily come off their mounts.

Placing the spacers onto the springs:

1. Notice how the spacer has three rubber stoppers, each higher than the other. The spring has to be tightened around these like a screw, moving it clockwise.

2. Ensure a tight fit between the spacer and the spring.

Place the spring on its mounts on the beam and put the damper in place by slowly lifting the beam using the car jack, one side at a time.

We greased the bolt that was removed from the bottom of the damper in method 1, as it had accumulated a lot of mud. This made it a lot easier to tighten.

Ensure that the bolts are tightened properly.

We managed to get the damper that was loosened using Method 2 in its proper position only after fitting the wheel back on the other side. After doing this, we loosened the nut on the top of the damper from method 1, to ensure a proper fit on both springs and dampers.

Put the wheels back and removed the stand jacks and lowered the vehicle.

These spacers increased the height by approx. 20 mm at the rear. My FIL had them installed a few years ago and then removed them while replacing one of the dampers. He mentioned that the car gets a tad bouncy over undulations at high speed, but nothing that made him nervous.

Here are a few pics after installation:

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.