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!