DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Wow, its amazing how good the original parts look after plating! This is something that I would like to do, and probably many others who are reading this...

Can I ask, did you have to clean them up first at all or did the plater do everything and how much does it cost if you don't mind saying?

If I can indulge further how does one know when its time to change the torsion bars?

Cheers!

Hi Dean,

The blasting and then plating were done by 2 different companies. An engineer friend of mine does this for me as he also needs to get a lot of parts cleaned and prepared professionally (his company make precision prototype parts mainly for the auto industry). The new torsion bars are 26mm vs the original 23mm bars, which will make the ride a bit stiffer. I will need to change the front to balance the car properly, but that will need to wait until the rear end is done. However, when I removed the old bars, they were showing signs of corrosion, which apparently can lead to them snapping. They were 52 years old too, so probably a bit worn out regardless.

My engineer friend, Mark, would be interested in getting parts refurbished if you need parts redone. He can get parts blasted, zinc plated and passivated (mine are yellow passivate) or stove enamelled or powder coated.

Paul

Some quality time spent in the garage today

Install the races on the spring plates. These are bonded on with strong epoxy.


greased up the torsion bars using my new grease gun.


The angle of dangle for the spring plates was previously 23 degrees on the RHS with a 5 degree elevation. On the LHS the angle of elevation is 6 degrees. I also installed the inner and outer bearings. I used some high temperature caulk as per the elephant instructions on both the torsion tubes and cover plate bearings. Note the grease nipples. I will grease them up when I've bolted everything together.




By rotating the inner and outer splines, the minimum move is 1 degree, so 22.65 is the closest I can get to 23 degrees on the RHS


With the extra 1 degree of elevation on the LHS, the 2 sides should be bang on at 21.6


I love it when a plan comes together!

Change of mind for the spring plate hardware though. After inspection, the bolts were very worn. Fortunately the expensive eccentric bolts are all fine, so I've repainted the eccentric bolt heads and have ordered new hardware for the rest.

Meanwhile, the ARB drop links came back from replating. These are gold passivate. The spring plates are yellow passivate.



Powder coated ARB, replated metal bits and new bushings


Before....


....And after. Bushings pressed in. Not an easy job. Plenty of boiling water required to soften everything up.

I bolted the spring plates back together today, albeit using the old bolts as the new ones haven't arrived yet and with the assumption that I would need to take it all apart to adjust the ride height.


After a very short drive the ride height is exactly 65cm on each side.


I want it back around this height. The picture was taken at my last visit to the Nurburgring. I reckon this is around 5 cm lower.


So. With the inner end of the torsion bar having 40 splines, and the outer having 44. A one turn clockwise on the inner, and 1 spline anticlockwise on the outer, I will lower the height by 0.9%. apparently 1% is around 7-9mm, I'll start with around 5% and see how I get on. Inner clockwise 6 splines and outer anticlockwise, also 6 splines = 4.9%

I applied a bit of maths to confirm what I'd read on the internet. I measured the length from the centre of the spline to the centre of the wheel which is 470mm. Using the principles of an isosceles triange, a 5% vertex angle will give me 41mm on the hypotenuse. Or, a 5% section of the circumference of a circle of radius 470mm also gives me 41mm (just to be sure). I'll go with that.

All coming together really well

Ride height adjustment at the back is such fun!

Tedious job with solid spring arms. All depends if the torsion bar snags in the spring arm or the centre of the tube each time you pull the spring arms.
Clean and lube the splines really well before you start.

Stance above looks spot-on imho.

Anti roll bar now fitted. Getting the drop link bushing on (the white one at the top of the drop link) was a bit of a pain. In the end leaving the bushing in boiling water together with plenty of lithium grease and a sturdy bash with a rubber mallet popped it on.


I also adjusted the angle of the spring plates. I'm still waiting for the new nuts and bolts to arrive from Design911, but the adjustment is done. Hopefully now for the last time, but I can only confirm that once everything is back together and the car is back on the ground.

The new hardware for my spring plates finally arrived from Design911


All bolted back together and on its wheels


The right side was just where I wanted it


But it wasn't level and the left side was too low by just 1cm


So I took the left side apart again. Of course, this would have been a doddle if I had the later style adjustable spring plates, but as I don't I spent a lot of time adjusting the inner and outer splines to get it spot on. 1cm = approx 1 degree of change on the spring plate.


Grease everywhere, but finally where I needed it to be.


Fortunately that go the levels spot on.


So, the rear suspension is finally done.... I've just ordered the front from Elephant racing: New 20mm torsion tubes, polybronze bushings, ball joints and new hardware... don't tell my wife!
I will get everything re-plated and powder coated when I install it too. Then I will get the suspension properly aligned.

I've only tested the suspension round the corner. No squeaks from the rear fortunately, but too early to tell if its made a big difference to the ride.

After a couple of months of driving the rear suspension set up is great. No squeaks and a firm but comfortable ride. My steering wobble became really bad around 70 mph, so I decided to replace the ball joints.

Ball joint 1 was a bit of a nightmare, but I learnt a lot and decided to make a youtube video as its actually a pretty easy job when you know what you're doing.
https://youtu.be/wUSH9LDP64Q

A few hours later, my steering wobble is eliminated and the front end feels a lot tighter.

Please like and subscribe if you watch my video.... My 1970 wiper fix now has 575 views, so I'll be retiring on the income soon (not!).

My car is now tucked up for the winter, so time for a few winter projects. Last winter I refreshed the rear suspension, so this winter I'm on the front.

Step 1. Jack up the car. Usually I put axles stands under the front suspension when I'm jacking it up. Obviously I can't do that and remove the supsension, so a sawn up fence post will have to do this time.


Plan is to balance the rear end out with slightly larger front torsion tubes and polybronze bushings from Elephant racing that I bought last year.


I'm going to remove all the front suspension and get it powder coated. Its all a bit crusty right now.


And replace all the bushes


I replaced the ball joints during the year. But the bottom of these need to come off at least. The Peugeot ball tool that I bought for £9 was ok to tighten them up, but useless for removal, so I had to buy the proper Porsche tool for £90.

Whilst I'm in there, the guard will also be powder coated.


Anti roll bar is coming out too


And the bushes are worn


I'm starting to get a collection of bits for powder coating and reanodising


Anti roll bars torn down ready for powder coating

The ends of the Anti Roll Bar have these ceramic things on the end. They needed to come off for powder coating anyway, but I'm not sure how I will get new ones on. I assume they come in 2 halves and are bonded together. Need to look into that.


Anyway, the old ones were cracked, so off they came.


Getting there with front left. I was not planning to remove the brake calipers as I didn't want to bleed the brakes. However, I think I'm going to get them refurbished too.


The front left disc was binding a bit. I'm not sure if the disc itself is warped or the bearings are worn. I will replace the bearings regardless, but I want to get the discs checked to confirm they are flat. Something else to look into

Amazing what you can get done when you have a few days off work! The strip down is going pretty well.


This is as far as I'm going. I didn't want to replace the brake lines.


The shock absorber covers cleaned up amazingly well. Both the shock absorber covers and struts were covered in heavy gunk. Not sure if it was underseal or waxoyl or a combination of both, but it was really gluey and took some time to remove.


Suspension struts cleaned up, masked and ready for some paint.


The track rod ends were the only parts that had a bit of surface rust, so I dosed them with some rust converter / primer.


Now everything is off, I will get the brake calipers and hubs refurbished. Everyhing else will be blasted. powder coated or re-anodised. I looked into geting the discs skimmed, but at around £40 for a replacement set of Brembo discs, its just not worth it. I'm now putting the shopping list of replacement parts together. A few other bolts, bushes and possibly a new ball joint that I can't get off and might need to be heated first, so could melt!

A lick of paint on the struts and the dust covers back on. Calipers are now off for refurbishment and everything else is off for replating or powder coating.