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Apr 17, 2024 21:50:01 GMT
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I had a good visit with Wayne at OddRods tonight, and we do have a way forward now but I need to chat with Kim & Andy about it before I say on how we achieve this. I had another look tonight at the crossmember & chassis rails and took some more measurements - the castor is 7 degrees! way too much for a road car. The chassis does look fairly simple to cut though........The white lines show the cut line and the drop needed. Wayne bluntly stated that the parts I brought over for him to look at were dangerous and that he would not touch them. His advise was it's less work to just start again, and I think I agree with him. A few photos of his work here show the quality of what he builds. This is under an Opal GT - with a twin turbo LS motor going in it!
Some larger lower wishbones for a truck and some other top wisbones.
One of his front clips under construction
And a shot of one under a Pop in his workshop.
These come all set up with no bumpsteer and he can even put the tracking approx correct for the initial fitting if asked.
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Apr 17, 2024 11:59:02 GMT
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Thanks for all the offers - it's very humbling.
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shandylegs That is very kind of you to offer, I'll PM you to discuss.
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Darkspeed - ah, the penny dropped this morning when I woke up - I apologise. I guess I mis-described my potential plan then. What I actually meant was to lower the balljoint in relation to the spring mount - if that makes more sense? This will then raise the car. But that has got me on another line of thinking - I don't think it would be terribly difficult to make a new lower wishbone mount for the crossmember and to weld those in place. The upper wishbones could then have the angled tubes to meet the top stub axle mount. Not the finest geometry I admit, but for the limited movement this car will have it should be ok. Like this;
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Apr 16, 2024 22:43:43 GMT
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A Mini rack? But that goes behind the front wheels It goes where you put it I don't know to be honest, all will be revealed tomorrow.
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Apr 16, 2024 22:07:19 GMT
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Some good progress tonight, I had a chat with probably the best hot rod suspension builder in the UK tonight - Wayne from 'Odd Rods' (he built my suspension on mine) and he is renowned for his front clips - especially for pops. Sadly he was contacted by car sos for one of his front clips, but as they wanted it in 24 hours he was unable to supply in such a short time frame which is a bit of a tradegy in retrospect. Anyway, I'm going over to him tomorrow evening with the whole front suspension and we will set it up on his suspension jig, I have taken all the datum points he asked for from the car and these will be replicated on the table so we can plan it correctly to rectify the problems. He thinks maybe a a mini rack as they are dead simple to narrow. So tonight was then spent on some little wins. I looked over the rear suspension and this was obviously checked over better with yellow markings on every bolt (I assume to mark it was tightened). The rear shocks did have a massive amount of pre load in them with the adjusters wound up rock hard. This would account for the bouncy ride when I drove it - only the tyres were giving the movement. I unwound them completely and just added a couple of turns of pre load, set the adjusters at 8 clicks and it now has a working rear suspension It needs a good clean - it's covered in filler dust everywhere! While under there I found the trans fluid leak Kim had told me about, it has a nice trans cooler fitted over the rear axle, and one of the pipe clips was a bit loose, nipped up and no more leak Another little job was welding some studs to the back of the throttle pedal plate, so it can fix securely to the mount with no bolts on the front. While the welder was on I bolted the wheel to the hub and welded the 3 loose studs back on, so another job ticked off. Lastly, the rearview mirror was bolted to the dash top - a fairly useless position, it's now fixed to the screen top as Andy wanted and has a far better rear view now.
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Apr 16, 2024 21:50:32 GMT
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Kevins,
Yes the struts give you so much more room.
Fred, yes you are right - a lot of the car is really good, it's just temporarily overshadowed by the bad bits. Once sorted it will be great. Again you are correct about the camber gain, but in reality it's not a track car and the suspension travel is only a couple of inches so although not optimal, it will be fine for real life usage.
Thanks for your input from South Africa!
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Apr 16, 2024 21:45:55 GMT
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Hi Mark, I am all good with my understanding - if no pivots move nothing moves its as simple as that - you will not levitate the chassis with different wishbones To raise the car you need to drop the spindle in relation to the lower ball joint - you are not doing that a wishbone is not a pivot its a pivot carrier. The penny will drop - but not the axle in relation to the chassis Give it time .Andrew, this is exactly what I AM proposing doing though.
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Apr 16, 2024 15:20:17 GMT
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Andrew,
I think you misunderstand my drawings. I plan to mount the balljoints approx 45mm lower in the wishbones - with the wishbones staying at the same level. This moves the stub axle downwards thus raising the car.
The block on the right is the steering arm.
All I'm doing is the reverse of dropped spindles that are used to lower cars - just in a cruder way as the spindle is not altered, just how its mounted in the wishbones.
The datum lines for the wishbone pivots are the chassis fixings - so do remain constant.
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Apr 16, 2024 15:13:19 GMT
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Andrew,
It's only about 45mm off, with the current compression of the shocks (they have about 4.5" of travel) they are roughly in the middle. I think the basics are about right - just too high in the car.
Dropping the crossmember would be ideal - but I'm not going down that road, too much work & time neither which are available at this stage.
If I can lower the stub axles to about the place in my crude drawing it should all work quite well. Track width is about right, those wings curve down over the tyres quite a bit.
The shock mounts on the lower wishbones need dropping as the shock is being compressed just to get the stub axle fitted to the wishbones.
Will the Maxi balljoints work for the top mounts as well (I assume they will).
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Apr 16, 2024 14:38:14 GMT
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kevins, yes machining the end is far easier/better, same for the TRE ends. Darkspeed , This crude drawing shows how I mean to drop the spindles to increase ride height. I get where you are coming from with the geometry. I remember when I designed my strut front end - it took 7 weeks of cramming on suspension design to understand that suspensions are incredibly complicated! New design on left - current design on right.
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Apr 16, 2024 12:19:48 GMT
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Fred, I think if I effectively just drop the uprights on the wishbones then the rack does actually remain in the correct geometry (the inner wishbone & steering knuckle points remain in the same pivot point - that bit is at least correctly built). Darkspeed, this is my thoughts on the upper arm - it's only a crude cad drawing from assumed dimensions but it shows the principle of my idea. the lower one would be similar as long as it allows for full steering movement etc. Top view & end view showing the lowered position of the balljoint. If I can do this it keeps the suspension in the parameters it was built for but effectively lowers the spindle height on the suspension - hence raising the car. This will still allow the correct spring travel/poundage.
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Apr 16, 2024 11:24:37 GMT
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Thanks Andrew,
There is some benefit in levelling off the upper arm as it gives more clearance for the spring. If I can use smaller footprint balljoints that will help matters a lot.
The rack (should??) be dropped as if I effectively drop the spindles on the wishbones (by making lowering platforms for the balljoints) then the rack should be dropped by the same amount - or should it?? - or am I overthinking it?
The rack is actually in the correct place for the suspension as it stands right now. Apart from the car being too low, the suspension (apart from the balljoints bottoming out on droop and the calipers hitting, the shocks being misaligned & springs fouling the wishbones) actually works about right.
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Darkspeed, I'm thinking this would also be ok?
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Thanks for all the input everyone. I had a thought this morning. As I have almose zero budget to fix this swapping out components is not happening. What I'm thinking is to make all new wishbones with the balljoints mounted a lot lower in the wishbones (so effectively dropping the spindles/raising ride height). This will keep the wishbones level. This will make the caliper/wishbone interference worse, but I think there is good scope to change thre rear of the lower wishbone shape to allow clearance. Issues with this are the rack may need dropping as well (I believe this cannot happen due to space constraints) so some form of drop link for the track rod ends will sort this. I'll set up castor/camber as I make new arms. (drivers side at present has about 4 times the passenger side camber ) Yes, the wear pattern on the discs is not very good, but it's only done 90 motorway miles so far so may just not be bedded in yet. The short drive I did in it the brakes seemed to work well.
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Apr 15, 2024 22:55:24 GMT
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Look like Granada Mk1/2 uprights and balljoints to me. Possibly P100 Cortina style. What PCD are the hubs? Cheers, I'll check the PCD tomorrow. Some better shots of the oprights & calipers for identification;
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Apr 15, 2024 22:54:03 GMT
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Just come in from a couple of hours on it - found a couple more horrors, but options are now becoming clearer. I broke the rack down to see where it had been narrowed, it seems to be done to the correct measurements, but it's just not quite straight. The daft thing on these racks though, is you can just cut the end off and have it turned down and a new thread cut and then just screw the cup back on & stake it. Far easier & safer. And the differently adjusted TRE's. I found out the reason for this odd adjustment later on. (and the bad butt welded joints - again they can be cut down and re-threaded). This is the maximum steering available on the passenger side, not much eh?
Thats because the brake caliper hits the lower wishbone. The odd TRE length was to stop this! The upper mount holes are not in alignment - obvious here; so they will need to be welded up and new holed drilled.
One bit I can't work out is why all 4 wishbones have been fitted with the rose joint spacers at the back but the rose joints are tight at the front? Why not fit thinner spacers both sides??? I will rectify this as I see no reason not to.
Hmmmm....nice groove in the tyre - that will be where it was ripped into by the headlamp mount (which ripped the wiring off aparrently) before it was given back - how low was it before then if it's still too low now? Anyway, I reassembled it with the original springs and put it on a flat level section of the garage floor, just over 3" clearance under the grill and the suspension arms are at this angle;
And with it sitting on some bricks approx where I think it ought to be - 5" under the grill - I might get away with 4.5" as there is enough clearance everywhere else. A bit more angle than I would like, but I might be able to lose some of that when I alter the balljoint plates.
The springs are 425Lbs and are 8" open, with the weight of the car on them they compress to 6 1/8" - I'm sure there's a formula to work out what the poundage should be as I believe they should compress less? I forgot to measure the length now I've got them on bricks, will do that tomorrow.
Car stance sitting on the bricks - I think it can go 1/2" lower without issue.
Last job before I came in was the throttle pedal, as you can see, it's too low and too near the A post. (and the cable is completely misaligned to the bulkhead)
A little bit of reworking to the bracket and it's now aligned with the bulkhead so the cable runs straight, and it's move up and in, a far more comfortable foot position.
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Apr 15, 2024 19:05:44 GMT
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Had another look at it tonight before dinner.
With the bottom of the grill 5.5 inches off the ground we have a good 7.5 inches under the crossmember and every other part of the car.
So that all looks good.
The wishbones are pointing a little downward at that height (unsprung) but I might be able to lose a bit of that when I alter the ball joint plates on the arms.
The rack is Escort mkII, it is narrowed the correct amount, I'll unstake one end tonight to see if it been narrowed straight.The reason for it turning more one way than the other is the TRE's are wound on 15mm different each end! If they were put on evenly that would help out a lot.
If I get a new rack and a long steering shaft I'm hoping my friend Rob can make up some kind of interference fit or sleeve joint to extend the rack input shaft using the steering shaft that will have the correct spline on the end for the uj.
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Apr 15, 2024 12:19:42 GMT
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I'll have a look when I get home.
The front needs about a 2" lift to be a sensible ride height.
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Apr 15, 2024 12:02:07 GMT
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Thank you both.
Ian Mocket - thats correct. Paul, is it an Ian Mockett crossmember?
Kevins,
Initial thoughts as of last night are to unpick the plates from the tubular arms and refix them for the correct ball joint angles. Re-make the lower shock mounts in the right place & reinforce their mounting (possibly making the lower mounts bolt in for ease if shock fitting).
Replace the rack with a new professionally narrowed one.
Fit a new lower column bearing in the correct place.
Fix shifter mechanism & kickdown cable.
Fix the (obvious) wiring issues and then give it back with the idea it comes back at a later date to sort out the smaller issues.
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