RobinJI
Posted a lot
"Driven by the irony that only being shackled to the road could ever I be free"
Posts: 2,995
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The fuel bill haha. But yeah, I am loving it so far. The steering could do with a bit more feel, so I may look at what could be done in that respect, but otherwise, it's a nice drive, and so much more spacious and comfortable. Also as much as my particular MX-5 did have a story behind it, and some history, it still had no where near the character the quirky old Swedish barge has. I can't wait to get ironing out the few little things I want to tweak. Do you think there'd be any chance of sticking it on the ramps next weekend at some point, just to give it a good check over?
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antz
Part of things
Posts: 116
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Yours looks ace Robin! I cant wait to pick my new GLT up on Saturday. It cant come soon enough and weirdly I'm actually looking forward to the 5hour drive home. actually looking at your car, my mate had a silver GLT a while back and he refurbished the wheels white. I wonder if this is the car? Youll be able to do something with the suspension no doubt. the lower braces are essentally just a big ass circular on each side to stiffen it up.
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Last Edit: Jul 7, 2011 21:06:59 GMT by antz
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jonah
Part of things
Posts: 36
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I want to have a good look at the suspension soon too. The rides not as nice as I'd like considering there's still a lot of clearance, and a lot of body roll. I know this is probably partly just a result of going from a car on double wishbones all round to struts up front and a cart axle out back. I think the best bet will be to have a look at ARB options to cut down on the body roll, and I feel it needs to be a little stiffer out back, and softer up front. With some decent shocks I think that would give a much better compromise between handling and ride. Don't be fooled by a 240 appearing to have loads of "clearance", they have such a bizarre stance as standard, with enormous front wheelarch openings and loads of daylight between front tyre and arch, that even quite radical lowering doesn't make them appear to be very low. It gets to the point (IMO) where getting a 240 low enough to look good, especially on larger diameter wheels, and retaining a decent amount of suspension travel means going for coilovers on the front with shortened strut legs and shorter inserts. Lowering them more than a little also upsets the steering geometry and the steering arms really need spacing down from the strut to correct this, although there is now an excellent solution available here.The GLT was the most sporty version available in the UK and had good quality De Carbon shocks (similar to Bilsteins) as standard with a least one of the ARBs being larger than other 240s (can't remember if it's front, rear, or both?), if the shocks are still fitted and in good nick I'd think carefully about changing them. My 240 has -40mm Spax springs, with Spax shocks on the rear, re-valved Bilsteins on the front, IPD 25f/22r ARBs and various poly bushes. The ride is stiff, but acceptable, and it handles way better than before. It looks OK on 15" 740 steelies, but I recently offered up a set of 17s I have for it and it looks ridiculous and will definitely need lowering more.
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antz
Part of things
Posts: 116
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DVS do the spacers too to correct the geometry.
I remember being really disappointed when i lowered my old 240 because even thought it was 40mm on Spax springs it didnt look any different to a normal car until I parked it next to a standard 240 THEN i could tell.
I'm going to go for the IPD sway bar kit and as many poly bushes i can get on my new 240.
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RobinJI
Posted a lot
"Driven by the irony that only being shackled to the road could ever I be free"
Posts: 2,995
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I had been looking at the lower ball joints and thinking they looked like they were at a bit of an unfortunate angle actually, but I hadn't realised the bottom ball-joints mount bolted to the strut like that. Those products look really good, but well out of my price range. I'll definitely be looking at spacing the track rods downwards myself, and will try and look at getting the ball joint lower too, although that looks a little harder to fabricate, still possible though.
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Are 240's hungry for dinosaur juice then? Surely the mx5 was worse?!?
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jonah
Part of things
Posts: 36
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Jul 10, 2011 10:32:51 GMT
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I'll definitely be looking at spacing the track rods downwards myself, and will try and look at getting the ball joint lower too, although that looks a little harder to fabricate, still possible though. This may be of interest.
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RobinJI
Posted a lot
"Driven by the irony that only being shackled to the road could ever I be free"
Posts: 2,995
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Jul 10, 2011 15:49:10 GMT
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It doesn't seem great on juice so far, I haven't actually done the caclulations yet, but at a guess I'd say it's managed between 23 and 27mpg over the last week, but it's been an odd mix of driving, some motorway at varying speeds, some back lanes, a bit of around town and a fair few twisty a-roads. Cheers for that link jonah, interesting stuff. I've signed up on turbo-bricks, but haven't made a post yet. I'm thinking I need to get my hands on another set of front legs to get butchering to make some coilovers with the ball-joint corrections too. I had a bit of a comedy mishap yesterday, I checked the oil, which was at the bottom of the acceptable area on the stick, so I topped it up, and the engine got less tappety, which was nice. I then set off for Bristol to pay a visit to Area 52, and as I came to turn off the motorway noticed the rear window was getting pretty grubby, in the last couple of bits of traffic there was a little smoke appearing from under the bonnet and smelling of oil, and as I got moving it was billowing out the back, that'd explain the dirty window, as I was only just around the corner from A52 I carried on rather than stopping in traffic and blocking the road, temps looked ok, and the engine still sounded healthy. When I pulled up smoke billowed out around the car. Upon opening the bonnet I was greeted by oil EVERYWHERE and the oil filler car still resting neatly behind one of the strut tops. Woops The smoke was the spilled oil burning off the exhaust manifold, and it turned out to only have lost about 6/700ml of oil, amazing what a mess even that small amount made. Oh well, no harm done, and I've just cleaned the oil off the car, and most of the engine bay, lesson learned, I blame getting home at 4:56 the night before haha
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The GLT was the most sporty version available in the UK and had good quality De Carbon shocks (similar to Bilsteins) as standard with a least one of the ARBs being larger than other 240s (can't remember if it's front, rear, or both?), if the shocks are still fitted and in good nick I'd think carefully about changing them. On the GLT saloon, both ARBs are beefier than on the povo spec saloons. However, all the estate models have the weakest ARB fitted in the rear. It's actually only used on the estates, it is weaker than on the saloon models, so any saloon ARB would be an upgrade in the rear, even on a GLT / Turbo estate. The only exception is the 70s model estates, which had no ARB in the rear at all.
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194? Willys Jeep MB 1965 Volvo 544 Special 1968 Opel Rekord 1975 Opel Kadett Estate 1985 Mercedes-Benz 230E 1985 Datsun 720 King Cab 4x4 diesel 1997 Volvo S70 2.5SE (ex. "Volvo544special65" - changed to more reader friendly username. )
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RobinJI
Posted a lot
"Driven by the irony that only being shackled to the road could ever I be free"
Posts: 2,995
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Jul 26, 2011 15:43:26 GMT
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Right, big change of plans unfortunately Just after arranging to buy the Volvo, I left my full-time job, and decided to go to uni in September to do the final year of my degree while the fee's are still sensible(ish). As a result I've come to the conclusion that I simply can't afford to run the big old Volvo, and as I still had my Scirocco lying around in the garage, which gets around 37mpg, compared to the Volvo's 27.7, I can't justify it. As a result I'm now driving the Scirocco again, and will be selling the 240 to help pay for uni. I'm off to write an advert. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
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