Next steps for suspension

 With the front arms now sorted, I was able to switch everything round and get the car on to it's wheels. It wasn't too bad, although it needed some major tweaking to get the wheels to a reasonable point. 

When they first went on I was at 4 degrees camber on the right, and 6 on the left! As I wasn't planning on any japanese drift action I thought bringing it into spec was better. A few adjustments got me 2 degrees camber on all four wheels;

Now, while it was in the garage I found the right hand side was touching. This camber setting was really not helping though, and at 2 degrees I now have decent clearance;

Well, I say decent... I think it's still a bit close to be honest. But the main thing is that I don't have to go for major surgery on the wishbones. Spacers are the order of the day here. I did measure the front and rear track, using the discs as measuring points I got 57 inches on the rear and 55 on the front. It means that the rear is already wider, so an extra inch won't hurt. Comparing it to the body work I've got to cover 80mm on the front and 70mm on the rear, so again bringing them out a bit will actually just even things up rather than looking ridiculous. Then if I go for 80mm fenders all round I should be good for IVA.

I also considered height clearance. Both front and rear are now halfway up the spring height adjustment, with the rears running the longer coilover;

From a looks point of view they're perfect, but from a compression point of view the fronts are still too tight. As before I can bounce the front and the bonnet lifts. Rears are nowhere near hitting, they'll find the bumps stops before the bodywork. I might swap back to short dampers on the back, but I'm not going to make any more decisions until the fenders are in place. 

I also checked speed bump capacity;

Front valance, then sump. Pretty much as expected really. If the front drags I have two foot of braking distance before the sump is left on the road. I might trim the front though, it's pretty untidy with lots of mould release marks and damage. 

This is it now for suspension. Brakes can go straight on now, and I can bleed the lines. Driveshafts and propshaft are needed to get it moving, but the prop still needs cutting down.

One brief distraction, the centre mirror got fitted as well;

Such a basic item, but it looks the part. Or at least it will when the masking tape is gone and the gauges are a little less 'papery'. 

I think it's time now to focus on the gauges. I've put them off for a while now, and they're not getting any closer to completion. It's still the temperature gauge and oil pressure that I'm stuck with. I'm just not convinced they'll fit vertically, and I'm starting to question why I'm still pushing for it. Well, I kind of know why I'm still pushing for keeping them vertical, it's because moving them horizontal will look rubbish!! I quite like the fact they're vertical. If I could box them in sufficiently then I'd be set.

Oh, and talking about being boxed in... there is every chance I'll need to put a radiused edge at the bottom of the front lip, it's most definitely a hard surface so I don't have much choice. I really don't want to make the whole dash squishy. This is the specific wording;

• Must have a radius of curvature not less than 19mm or 
• 5mm and be covered with a non-rigid material

Hmm, perhaps some tube covered with the seat pleather might be a nice finish... Hmm number two, perhaps a full dash cover in seat pleather... ooh, now I have a dilemma... I really wasn't going to go for a covered dash, but I really really want to now! 

A milestone

This warrants a post all on it's own...

 

Front good, rear bad...

This week I've been making progress with the fronts. Last post I had got to bare wishbones, ready for the updated brackets. 

Fast forward to them being completed, painted and with the ball joints back in!! OK, I thought I had taken photos but I guess not. 

I also managed to get the die wrench for the steering rack thread cut, so once that was done I was able to reassemble everything. And it looks so much better;

At least now the front wheels can point in the same direction at the same time!! By the time I adjust the camber I'll need to adjust it even further out, so I'm happy with the rack fix. For the ride height;

I think I've ended up exactly where I wanted to be. Which is pretty much where I started from, but now the spring seat is halfway up the thread and it's sitting on the shorter shocks. If I stand on the front of the car the wheels hit the bodywork, but at least now I've got plenty of adjustment. I'll still need to cut the arches and recreate them, but at least I know where I'm starting.

And now on to the rear;

Looks like the coilovers are plenty long enough for the rear, at full droop there's maybe 6-8 inches so I have the option of swapping them over, winding them up or down, plenty of options really. But...

Why did I even expect things to work first time? With everything in place, the spring is resting on the tyre. If I increase the camber until the wheel is vertical, I can just about get it to clear, but a slight fatter tyre, a slight twist on the wheel, any number of tiny things, and I have a tyre shredded on the coilover. 

The obvious one here is a wheel spacer. To be fair, that's quite possible. If I put a ruler vertically on the bodywork on the rear, it's close to the outside of the wheel;

I do the same at the front and it's a good inch or so further out; 

That means I could use something like a 20mm spacer and still have it look comparable front and rear. 

But I think I want to alter the upper wishbone mount. The current wishbone is a two parter, with the upright and coilover on the same bolt;

I thought I was being clever here. Same bolt means that there's no adverse forces on the wishbone apart from tension. The upright feeds directly into the coilover and into the chassis. Camber is dealt with by a long bolt and washers (or metal plates) as seen in the photos. But apart from the obvious spring/tyre issue, it also had a couple of drawbacks. Space was tight, so the damper has to be that way up. This puts the damper adjustment almost inaccessible. Also the bolt through the upper bush is one size smaller than the coilover mounting hole, so I had to add a sleever to both. I also had trim the bracket for the damper to not interfere with it. And lastly it's a pig to fit, because the three plates that go either side of the coilover and the upright are rock solid with almost no give. 

I don't want to lift the coilover any higher, there's no need for it. I basically want to move it inboard to clear it from the wheel. This is a picture of the current design;

I need to cut at the  line, then do 'something' to bring the bracket back in line. I could do with lifting it up slightly to stop it binding on the bracket. 

Back tomorrow for a plan though... in other news, the roll bar polishing went really well. Starting here;

This is after 150, 240 and 400 grit;

Then it was 1000, 1500 and 2500, then polish. The polish looked really good, but I couldn't leave it there so brake cleaner degrease then a clearcoat. Comparing the two shows it's come up really well, I'm very happy with the result. 

It's not chrome shiny but I didn't really want it, this is the dull matt shine of raw metal. Well, with clearcoat to protect it! I might do another coat of clearcoat, it's not as if I'm after a gloss finish but a few extra microns of protection would be good. I'll do the other one tomorrow, then the roll bar in the week. It's a tedious but not overly hard job, although my shoulders will say otherwise tomorrow!

Suspension progress

 This weekend has been productive but without actually producing anything. I had two jobs, the first was the toe out fix. The M14 die arrived on Friday, I tried it on Saturday and within ten minutes I realised I needed a die wrench. I wasn't going to do it with a pair of adjustable pliers! 

The wrench arrived today, and it worked quite well. I managed to get enough thread cut to bottom out the extenders. That 'should' turn the toe out into neutral toe or maybe some toe in. If not, I can cut off the end of the steering rack, that'll get me further adjustment. Cutting an M14 thread is extremely tough though, so fingers crossed I only need to do it once!

The other job was the front suspension. After cutting the plates;

I started tacking them together. I also got the lower wishbones off and the bracket removed;

It was really hard going though, so along with the steering rack fix I just ran out of time/ability. Not much to finish it off though, once it's back together I can get the rear suspension built up. Hopefully I can wrap it up one evening.

Temporarily putting the dampers in place with the new brackets did look good though;

Definitely on the right track. I am hoping that I'm not increasing the load though, or more specifically increasing the load closer to the middle of the wishbone. There's already a stress riser at the end of the plate, if the force applied by the shock absorber ends up closer to the centre of the wishbone then it could be an issue. I don't think it will, if anything it will spread the same load across the same wishbone plate and end up with the same potential issues. 

Front suspension fix

So it's almost a week since I figured out the front suspension measurements were wrong and I have shocks that are too short. I've been doing various calculations and drawings, and I have the following;

The short shock is 305 extended, 249 compressed which means 56mm of shock travel.

The long shock is 330 extended, 267 compressed which means 63mm of shock travel. 

The difference in travel isn't much, so I'm ok to use the short shock on the front. It does mean that I'll have to make a longer bracket but that was a given either way.

If I use the short shock, then the car needs to be on it's own weight with the shock length being halfway between compressed and extended. That means 280mm roughly from eye to eye. This works well with the spring seat, the heavier springs are 160mm long when compressed under the cars weight, and the spring seat is about halfway up the thread.

Comparing with the current setup, the longer shock is at full extension to give me suitable clearance off the body, and that measures 330mm. So the bracket needs to reduce the shock distance from 330mm down to 280mm, 50mm. If I use the 5mm plate steel to make up brackets, that gets me to the right place. 

But I need to brace it. The brackets will be made so they stay in line with the bracket, but if I just use brackets they're not triangulated. It would be a lot of force if the brackets stopped being in line and started to deflect. 

As for the bracket, it's 32mm wide. If I used 40mm box section with a 4mm wall thickness, I could simply remove some material and the bracket would make itself. It's not expensive, but it won't arrive in time for this weekend. 

So, looking at where the bracket is now;

If I make four plates, about 70mm long, as wide as the diagonal. (35mm), I can drill a hole in one end for the shock, then tack them in place at the required angle. Once they're in position I can figure out how to brace them. My first thought was to brace them against each other across the car, but then the engine won't come in and out!! But at least I have an idea of where the brackets will end up. More importantly, I can use the short shocks with strong springs.

Of course, I'm lining this all up with the bodywork as is, and when the shock is better positioned there will actually be compression available which will hit the bodywork. But as I'm putting on arches anyway I can simply trim the body to match.

Well, that was a lot of typing for not actually much information! But at least I can start cutting the steel.

(Edit) I'm wondering whether a bracket on the frame is a good idea, or whether I should update the lower wishbone. It will be additional unsprung weight, but I'm not going to for something mega lightweight here. Putting the brackets on the lower wishbone would be a lot less work, a lot easier to weld. The surface is flat, sure I'd have to repaint them but that's hardly a major issue. As long as I can find the tin of gold paint! I'll box in the two triangular pieces to reinforce it, then weld the whole thing to the wishbone. 

Next steps: Rear suspension

 So last week the front dolly collapsed, I thought it was because of the engine weight but it turns out the rear one isn't far behind. It's just about holding the car up for now, but the wheels have dropped a few bearings and one wheel is really badly chewed up and hanging off. So now I need a solution for the rear. 

The obvious solution would be to build up the suspension and get the rear wheels fitted. This would show up any rear suspension issues (like I've had on the front). But the angle of the garage would not allow the car to come in and out very easily. Here's a few photos, first of the right hand side;

And the left;

This photo isn't overly clear, but you can see that if I took the car straight out, it would get to my neighbours drive before my own;

So what I need to do is allow the car to come in at an angle, which basically means I need to get much of the stuff from the right hand side of the garage over to the left. It shouldn't be too bad, I'll just push the car back a couple of feet then start moving things. It's an old school table that my wife wants to keep, the engine hoist and the welder. Then whatever is stacked up on top of those. I could in theory move the drawers and even the set of shelves that is set up by the door, but for now they're not in the way. I might also do some more tidying on the other side of the freezer, there's a bit of space but also several sheets of unused wood that could do with being sorted/stored/binned. 

Once I've rearranged everything, the rear wheels can go on and I can start taking the car in and out on wheels rather than on the dollies. Then I can watch the ever-increasing snag list get even bigger because something doesn't fit properly on the back. 

Boot hinges and the kit car show

 I did get a few positives out of this weekend. The kit car show was great as always, by the time I'd got round all the cars and took lots of photos it was very definitely mid-afternoon! I went on the Saturday and the clouds kept things comfortably cool. I felt there were fewer cars but more people, so overall a great success. This was my car of the show though;

A GT40 in JPS livery, a perfect combination! I am a big fan of the JPS colours, while I don't think they would suit my current Healey shape I would still want to build/buy a car to host those iconic badges and stripes.

The biggest surprise was the cyclekarts, they looked like great fun and the creativity in some of the karts was just amazing;

On to more useful matters. This car gave me some great ideas for the rear trim;

In this case the trim round the cabin was the standard thick stuff, but just round the roll  bar was thinner flexible trim. This makes a lot of sense. One of the things I got from the show as some edge trim, but while it will work nicely for the larger corners there is no way it's bending round a roll bar cut out. Following this sort of two stage approach will work nicely, I just need to get some of the flexible trim.

On the subject of buying things, I got some hinges from the show and got them fitted on Sunday;

They look really nice and are one more step to getting the back completed. I still need to add rubber trim to the edge of the boot, as well as finding a handle. You can see on the left and right hand side the boot sits too low in the recess, once I add some rubber trim it'll lift the boot edges as well as seal the gap. Then it's on to the handle, whenever I manage to find one! 

Anyhow, back to the car show, here's a few more photos I took for ideas and inspiration. First off was a car that looked like something I'd seen in a scrapyard in Wolvers, a bit like a Nova but with gullwing doors rather than the lift off roof. It was nice to find out what the car was, but in some ways it's even more disappointing to know it's probably still in that scrapyard wasting away;

Next was a nice Tribute automotive 250, it's pretty much a rebodied MX5 but this one appealed to me because of the supercharger install. It's a possible upgrade for me, if I don't find a suitable six cylinder lump;

Next on the agenda is wheel arches, here's some examples from the Sebring family;

I also noticed the very common choice of minilite wheels, and I think my choice of MX5 daisies will be a nice comparison! Next is a random picture of a trimmed roll bar, as mentioned above it's the more flexible trim being used here. I'll either follow this approach or go for a 3D printed cap, I'm not sure yet.

Filler cap and boot handle ideas;

This looks like a rehomed MX5 dash given the position of the gauges, the chrome trims look interesting. I was going to use 3d printed trims but I might look at how much the chrome trims are. 

No specific inspiration here, apart from the colour scheme. That deep burgundy is gorgeous!

This car had similar aluminium panelling to what I'm planning, although it uses a thin black piping between the panels. It looks tidy but I think I'm going to stick with my own preference.

Now for a high point of the show, the Ron Champion car that started it all. I didn't get a chance to meet the man himself as he was at the show only on Sunday, but it was so good to see the original car in the flesh;

And now the low point;

One sole Nova... every year I've been to the kit car show (wherever it may be) I always seek out the Nova stand. In previous years at Stoneleigh there would be dozens of Nova's. This year, just one. I hope that this is just because I was early, or that there was another show, or something else was going on. But if this is the last road going Nova then it's such a sad day.