1987 3.2 Carrera Backdate project - Sladeys hotrod

sladey · Post by **sladey** » Wed May 04, 2016 11:02 pm

OK - enquired with Fenn Lane about e-coating or power-coating them - Chris recommended two pack epoxy so I'll do that instead.

Also had this response from Chuck at Elephant Racing:-

"Sorry about the issues. We will be sending you new threaded sleeves that are larger in ID. These will go out today and you will get another email with the tracking. No charge."

Can't say fairer than that - hope the new ones fit.

As long as they do fit I reckon I'll weld on a collar and fillet like Jon has - while it's all apart it would be rude not to

Gary71 · Post by **Gary71** » Wed May 04, 2016 11:12 pm

Good service! Are the spring seat nuts the same with the new tubes?

sladey · Post by **sladey** » Wed May 04, 2016 11:24 pm

Think so - I'm guessing only the internal diameter will change. We'll see what arrives

Gary71 · Post by **Gary71** » Wed May 04, 2016 11:30 pm

Fingers crossed it all goes together this time

Nige · Post by **Nige** » Thu May 05, 2016 10:12 am

sladey · Post by **sladey** » Thu May 05, 2016 10:40 am

Nice emoticon Nige

Nige · Post by **Nige** » Thu May 05, 2016 10:53 am

I'm in the metal zone, was listening to Pantera Cowboys from Hell on the way in this morning.

sladey · Post by **sladey** » Mon May 23, 2016 9:29 am

OK - so, Tank out (I ended up having to cut through the rubber return pipe). I emptied the tank first which lead to the delightful experience of lying on your back with petrol pouring down your arm. In theory I should replace the whole return pipe (which runs through the centre console. In practice I've been to a local hydraulic place and am getting fittings to join onto the pipe.

Jon rightly pointed out to get the through the body ARB on a G50 car you have to massage this moulding back into line

Protected it all with a bit of epoxy mastic

and shiny ARB is poking through. Initially the two holes weren't lining up but there is a little bit of give in the panel so a bit of bending and all was well

The struts came together nicely - the new sleeve sent through from Elephant Racing fitted fine - he'd just taken a standard one and reamed it out fractionally. As recommended I put duct tape around the strut to take out any slop

Then it was time to replace the missing rings on the stub. After cleaning it up, first put the rubber o-ring in place

Then it's over to the oven - for those of you with an aga I found 30 minutes in the hot oven was plenty. I've heard that 30 minutes on 165 degrees is also fine. Once that was done it all tapped on beautifully. In fact it was probably a bit too hot as one of them was initially not staying down. As it cooled slightly though it went down fine and stayed there

sladey · Post by **sladey** » Mon May 23, 2016 9:40 am

Ok so now time for a bit of scaffolding (really really nicely made and very stiff - much like myself)

Strut assembly all going together nicely

When I took the discs off one of the hubs didn't seem to be turning smoothly. Checked it out and it doesn't seem to be pushed in all the way but when held in its smooth.

Going to clean it all up and investigate tomorrow night

sladey · Post by **sladey** » Thu Jun 09, 2016 4:04 pm

OK, so not much response to that update then.......

Well currently the car is back on the road. It still needs setting up so the handling is unusual (and not helped by a nearly flat rear tyre yesterday. Got it booked in to Centre gravity for 2 days before CLM.

In the meantime there is a slight issue with the coilovers.

For the Boge struts the kit dictates that you use 2.5inch coilover springs. They are called 2.5 inch because the internal diameter of the spring is 2.5 inches (about 63.4mm). Because of the thickness of the spring itself this means the external diameter is around 84mm

Now as any fule do kno, you adjust the camber and caster on the 911 by moving the top of the strut left or right, forward or backwards. What I'm finding is that because of the increase in diameter the spring is hitting the inner wing before we get to maximum camber or maximum caster.

This took a bit of head scratching -

here's a picture of the problem:-

This is the original cover - it's a 70mm diameter

So I broke out the CAD software

And now I've come up with a plan.

Going to basically make a spacer to move the top of the spring downwards. The spacer will be as close as I can get to the original 70mm. At the moment I'm planning on shifting the whole thing down by 100mm - this will move the top of the spring clear of the inner wing and should restore full movement in the camber and caster adjustment.

This afternoon I tried to buy some steel tube - 70mm O/D and 64mm I/D. I couldn't get that but I've got 76mm O/D and 65mm I/D - the walls are about 5mm thick. I've now dropped that off at an engineering place and they are machining the outside down by 2mm all round leaving an O/D of 72mm - so 1mm wider than stock - I can live with that.

You may ask why I'm not just cutting down the original cover and using that - the problem there is that whilst the top is nice and strong (3mm I think) the walls are way too thin so I need more strength. After the machining I expect my tube to have 3mm walls. I'm then going to weld the cap off the existing cover onto my new tube

I've got probably just enough clearance on the threaded adapter part to move it down 100mm - as long as I remove the helper spring and the divider hat - with it all lower down I doubt I'll need the helper spring; and I'm planning on re-using the divider hat on my spacer.

Watch this space......

Nige · Post by **Nige** » Thu Jun 09, 2016 4:34 pm

You no fule bro!

smallspeed · Post by **smallspeed** » Thu Jun 09, 2016 8:13 pm

I might be missing something, but will that not effectively increase ride height by 100mm?

If you do that you will either have to lower the bottom perches 100mm also (which limits how low you can get the car - may or may not be an issue), increase the pre-load by a massive amount, or you'll have to cut the springs down by 100mm which i think will increase the spring rate..

If I'm not missing something, would you be better off ordering some custom springs from someone like Faulkner's? They're surprisingly reasonable and could make some the same stiffness, but with thinner cross section "wire" to give you full movement you're after.. You can compensate for the loss in stiffness by increasing the number of coils, changing material spec, etc..

smallspeed · Post by **smallspeed** » Thu Jun 09, 2016 8:17 pm

*******Edit*******
Just figured out you're planning on lowering the spring perch, removing the helper spring, etc..
If you get your pre-load and droop right the helper is not really required

If this doesnt give you enough, it might still be worth checking what Faulkner's can do - they probably have something that will give you a little more clearance

sladey · Post by **sladey** » Thu Jun 09, 2016 9:36 pm

Thanks - yes I've currently got about 90mm of unused thread below the lower perch. Taking out the helper Spring should get me another 20mm and I've ordered a new set of prints from Faulkener which are 8 inches instead of the 9 inch ones I've got on there at the moment so that's another 25mm. Also I don't know for certain I'll need the full 100mm - as the suspension compresses (from full droop) it moves out - away form the inner wing - so it may be that a shorter one will give me enough clearance

I'm optimistic it will work but as I said to the guy at the engineering works today "I'm winging it"

DustyM · Post by **DustyM** » Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:02 pm

sladey wrote:
"I'm winging it"

All the best projects are...

DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker