Sunday, January 29, 2006

Work on rear suspension



I've decided that while the car is up on stands and level, I will sort as much of the rear as possible - when I come to finish the front, the engine will have to be taken out so I can bolt the frame to the jig, turn it over etc. As John is not around for a while, such tasks will be more cumbersome and difficult, hence the decision to sort as much as I can before the engine has to come out! This meant tackling the rear lower 'wishbones'. I discovered that Fiesta Ball joints were available separately, you don't have to purchase the entire lower arm as the Haynes manual suggests, and a spell on E-Bay yielded two of these. These will be bolted to a steel plate (on the other side to the way shown on the image) and welded to two arms. The ends of the arms will have spherical bearings, partly to allow adjustments, but also because I was given some complete with threaded inserts (albeit LH thread!). The inserts were a bit too big so a friend turned them down on a lathe - a bit roughly but they'll do. Today I drilled through the CDS tube and welded through the holes to hold the threaded inserts in place, then welded around the top. All of this was done with a spare bearing screwed into the insert to avoid distortion. I am quite pleased with the results - 1 down, three to go!!!

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Back to work at last



After a lengthy break, I got started again today. Last week, John and his family, and me and my family, had a holiday at Center Parcs. John will now be away for a while so I am on my own. Now that I have the gearchange sorted, I set about making the 'N' frame - this will bolt in position under the engine to stabilise the back frame that mounts the rear suspension. I got this done but further progress was frustrated as someone has borrowed the pillar drill. Hopefully I'll be able to make some more progress at the weekend.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

New Year KISS

It has been a slow few weeks - partly due to 'Royal Visit' from mother-in-law and her mother over christmas, and partly due to Johns house move. However, spent last night in workshop and have finally (I hope) resolved the gearchange. Originally I had intended to use a combination of rods and cables, that I sourced frmo a Fiat Coupe a mate was scrapping. Wasted a couple of evenings trying to get it working nicely but I was never happy. Last night I tried again, but the new linkage I tried just pushed the selector into an arc of movement outside of the possible range, so in a fit of pique, I junked it all and reverted o the original plan of a simple rod, as per GTM coupes and the like. It seems to work! Forgot camera though! Sorry. Also, yesterday I ordered front shocks and springs from Protech - very nice, helpful people and thoroughly recommended! Hope everyone out there had a good Christmas, Happy New Year to you all and keep watching! Front end is next...