1987 3.2 Carrera Backdate project - Sladeys hotrod

[sladey]

Video shows the removal of the CV joint, although removed and on a bench. You do this under your car with the outer CV still bolted up the wheel hub, then drop the inner CV joint from the box, remove it and slide your new boot up the shaft to replace your knackered one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtZlHU78bQg&t=9s

I did this on mine some years ago, just make sure you pay attention to the CV joint orientation, bearings, etc. You do get lathered in grease, but you like that.

Thanks Nige

[sladey]

Just had notification that the new front bushing will be arriving on Friday. Do I fit them on saturday before the big trip on Sunday? Should be do-able. disconnect ball joint, unbolt front a- arm and slide out from rear after disconnecting the ARB. Then I'll have it on the bench to take out the old bushing and install the new one. Reassembly is the reverse as they say. That way I wouldn't have touched any of the adjustments made by Center Gravity. Still thinking about it

I'm rethinking this now and maybe coming to my senses. I'll have to get the old bushes off (held on by JBweld) and then fit the new ones - I may leave it until after the trip

[rhd racer]

Sounds sensible Mark - if it is going to go wrong it will go wrong when you have no time and all the suppliers are shut…


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[sladey]

Sounds sensible Mark - if it is going to go wrong it will go wrong when you have no time and all the suppliers are shut…


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Yep all very true. After reading the installation manual on the elephant racing sphericals I may have introduced the squeak myself by adding lube into the joint - it specifically says to not lube them. I might see if I can at least clean that out

[sladey]

Well that escalated…

The new bushes arrived today - Elephant Racing Sphericals - same as the ones already on there.

I thought I’d see if I could drop the A-arm without disturbing anything else so at least i could remove all the grease I’d put in there

Pretty soon I had it swinging freely so I was able to get at the ends and really clean them up



After looking at the ends I thought they weren’t too bad - a bit brown but not too bad at all. To fit the kit you JBweld a sleeve onto each end of the A arm and that sleeve is then a tight fit inside the bushing that slides over it.

Once I’d cleaned the ends up I tried the new bushings over the existing (brown) sleeves. Perfect fit! - Just about identical fit to the sleeves that came in the kit.

I therefore fitted the new bushings onto the existing sleeves, clamped it all up using special Frankenklamp



And I’m all done - new bushes in place and the squeaking is pretty much gone.

Happy days

I had a look at the rear ARB while I was under there - that knocks badly. - you can shake it about from underneath easily. I don’t think the new ARB will be delivered in time though… If I get a chance on Saturday I might see if I can do something about it


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[rhd racer]

Fair play! Enjoy the trip


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[sladey]

Thanks Wayne


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[markm]

Great work mark, should be a good trip with all new suspension, enjoy

[sladey]

Thanks mate

[sladey]

Ok so probably due a report on how things went

So firstly to stop the rear ArB from knocking I jammed a piece of metal in between the bracket and the bar to take the slack out of the bushing. Not ideal but it worked.

Then I went on the road trip. James has put up a report on the trip which I’ve contributed to but the bottom line is that it was an epic trip. Ragging the arse off these cars on mountain passes never gets old and to share that with your mates is an unforgettable experience.

So how was the suspension?

Utterly, utterly fantastic.

As I think I’ve said there are 5 settings. On each one you can set the softness of the front (on a scale of 1-5), softness of the rear, amount of roll prevention you want, and amount of pitch (forwards and backwards) prevention you want.

Pottering around towns/villages with bad roads/potholes I have it on pre-set 1 - softest shocks and pitch and roll at level 3. Pre-set 3,4 and 5 are all with maximum roll and pitch and with ever increasing shock stiffness. So on better roads and/or when pressing on I’ll select 3,4, or 5 and it’s epic.

The closest thing I can relate the driving experience to is driving the GT4. When you go round corners it just goes round. Getting things a bit wrong mid-corner isn’t the drama it used to be because the weight has already been managed by the time you realise something isn’t right. Apart from outright acceleration I was keeping up with GT3s and 964RS’s through the twisties. If you’re prepared to spend that much on your car I’d thoroughly recommend it - it’s the best mod I’ve done to the car (and I’ve done a few) by a long way.

Downsides? Well I’ve had an intermittent error on startup. This happened a few times on holiday. What happens is that sometimes when you start up you get a message that there is a short circuit on the front right shock. When it happened I fiddled around with the connector to the front tight and I thought that had sorted it but it came back. What I’ve found out by trial and error is that if I turn the ignition and start the engine straight away I never get the error. Never. However if I turn the key and let it sit there for a few seconds (e.g. letting the fuel pressure build) and then crank the engine then I’ll often get the error (but not so reliably if it’s later in the day?!?) In daily use I have therefore been able to work around it. However, when you’re spending this much money you don’t want a workaround.

When I got back I emailed the UK importer whose name is Steve from I think SixFour.co.uk. Initially he was helpful and positive. He’d contact tractiv in Holland and they suggested it might be a saved fault and disconnecting the battery for 30 seconds should clear that, or it could be a break in the cable. He was very positive at this stage.

I’ve checked the cable in the frunk and round by the shock and it’s all good there - also, if it was a physical break I doubt I’d be able to create and not create the error at will. However I did re-check it - it could possibly be a duff connector but if so then again I’m surprised I can bypass the error at will. I tried the battery off thing. I thought for the week-end this had sorted the problem so was pretty chuffed. However I got in the car to go to work on Tuesday morning and the error cropped up again.

I emailed Steve and told him what was happening and got a bit of a disappointing reply. He firstly said I needed to have an always on supply so my switched supply wasn’t right (not correct - needs an always on and a switched supply) and if he’d know I was going to DIY install it he’d have got me to get it professionally installed. finally he said I should contact Pete at Center Gravity if I wanted further help. I found this patronising and insulting - he either couldn’t help me any more or wasn’t prepared to. I emailed him back saying that and he got a bit shirty. Very disappointing service.

I ordered it through Center Gravity but I know they got it from Steve who is the importer which was why I’d contacted him for help.

I’ve booked into Center gravity in about 4 weeks time for a follow up front suspension check and they have offered to check over the wiring while it’s there.

This weekend I thought I’d check it out myself to see if I could find anything.

I wondered if the problem was because of something it was sharing the supply with - so that in that gap between turning the ignition on and turning the engine over was messing with the signal somehow (??!)

I’ve also had a weird intermittent problem relating to my aircon and the Bluetooth transmitter I use for my bangin choons. When the engine goes onto tick over the aircon automatically goes into a different mode (can’t remember what exactly) and when it does this it stops the Bluetooth working. Once you set off again the Bluetooth starts and reconnects. Again I wondered if this was relating to a combined power supply. So i thought I’d check that out at the same time.

When I split apart the wiring I found there was a thickish green cable which was supplying the switched power to:-
- The aircon button
- The power amp
- The Bluetooth transmitter
- And now the Tractiv suspension system

I started off by removing every single fuse, one after the other to see which fuse supplied the tractiv/stereo/bluetooth/aircon. Not one of them seemed to supply this circuit. Looking at the circuit diagram this green wire seems to come from the ignition into the radio but I can’t see a fuse involved








So, thinking that the aircon might be the culprit here I disconnected that first and started the engine up again - pausing with the ignition on before turning it over. I got the error!.

So the next strategy was to isolate the tractiv switched supply on its own. I went through the fuses again to find a switched supply. I narrrowed it down to a selection of fuses which I thought were all switched power. I connected that supply directly to the tractiv, but it appeared the one I’d chosen was always on - with the ignition off the tractiv was still live.

I moved on and picked another one - this was a 16 amp fuse serving amongst other things the hazard warning lights (it said). I connected the wire that ran directly toe the tractiv switched supply to that fuse.

I tried switching on and then turning the engine over, but when I tried to turn it over I just got a ‘click’. Panic immediately set in. I fuckn hate electrics. I really missed Ian at this point - this moment would normally result in Ian coming round and talking me down from the panic tree.

After a while I wondered what the battery was like - I know the tractiv uses the battery a fair bit and I’d been constantly testing it without the engine running. I hooked up the battery charger and sure enough the battery was fairly dead. Relief!

I plugged in the charged and left it to revive and got on with my other plan. - moving the drivers seat inwards by 25mm. More on that later.

After a few hours the battery was fully charged. I went to plop the immobiliser but got nothing. I should get one flash of the inidcators and it’s ready. Nothing. Not a sodding sausage. I tried locking it and unlocking it - again nothing with each button press. the light on the remote was flashing whenever I pressed the button so I reasoned the battery was OK.

I fuckn hate electrics.

I left the battery charging but disconnected to see if that did anything. Reconnected after a few hours and nothing - normally when you reconnect the indicators flash on. I tried again with the plipper - nothing. Turned the ignition on and all the lights came on as normal. It gave a double indicator flash as I turned the ignition key but nothing happened - no sound of fuel pump running and no turning of the engine.

I’d welcome any suggestions. At the moment I’m planning on trying to phone auto-electricians on Monday but not optimistic as I’ve not had good experiences trying to get one a few months ago.

I’ll copy this last bit into a ‘help please’ topic separately.


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[rhd racer]

Have you reconnected all the wires you removed and put the fuses back in Mark? Might seem daft but easy to do when trying lots of things….BTW - hazard should be perm not switched live


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[rhd racer]

It sounds like you have lots of heavy current drawing things going on there so I would be tempted to put in a small auxiliary fuse board just for those - powered by a separate large bore fused cable (like you would an 90s car hifi install) and then properly rated fuses for each of those things with their own supply. They won’t them trip over themselves and you won’t overload 50 year old wiring

Try vehicle wiring products at Ilkeston - they will have everything you need


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[sladey]

Thanks Wayne, and yes I’ve put everything back to how it was before.

I’ve found instructions using AI of exactly how to disconnect the toad immobiliser - doesn’t look too difficult so that might be the next step

There are fuses just for the immobiliser so I’ll check them first

And good suggestion on the fuse board - I just want to see if isolating it solves the problem first


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[rhd racer]

Sounds like the best place to start- tied up tomorrow but happy to pop round one evening and talk you down from that tree!


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[PeterK]

My money is on a fuse to the immobiliser