Suspension build issues

 The weekend was a mixture of all sorts, unfortunately more bad than good but these things are sent to try us.

Following on from my dolly collapse I needed to get the car mobile again. The most logical approach was simply to put the wheels on. The one side suspension was built up already, I just had to get the other side done and put the wheels on. And then the first problem arrived...

Everything went together, and I'm really happy with there being no contact issues. There is a common problem of the steering rack contacting the lower arm when using a Mark 1 knuckle, mine was perfectly fine from lock to lock;

(there's a lot of pictures as I wanted to make sure I had it all logged).

As you can see from the final picture above, I appear to have lost a steering rack clamp. The exhaust mount clamp was ok for no, but it doesn't tighten up enough to be useable, and besides I need it to be rubber mounted and have a thicker clamp. Something to add to my snag list.

But as I dropped the car back on the ground, the wheels decided to become intimate with the body. There was just no clearance, and the bonnet would have lifted it I had not noticed the contact. The 'fix' can be seen in the above photos, I had to wind the spring seats all the way out. This sort-of solved the ride height, but to be honest it's still not as good as I might have liked;

1.5 inches clearance doesn't give much for suspension compression. Then again, with the springs wound to the fullest point they probably wouldn't move much anyway! And of course, this is without the other lump of ballast that needs to be added, IE the driver. 

(Edit: I've just had a response off LCB, the suggestion is that there needs to be enough clearance that nothing hits if the spring is removed and the car is on it's bump stop. In theory that sounds reasonable, in practice I reckon that would be catastrophic. But then I've had enough broken springs to know that it could happen, so I ought to at least check what would happen. That may force my hand into buying longer coilovers)

So that's problem one, it doesn't have a solution yet. The most expensive solution would be to get new dampers (about £100 each for the Gaz ones, G140/095B12-2 is the part number), the cheapest would be to cut the bodywork. Given that I need to add wider fenders, the latter may be the best option. The weird thing is that the lower arm is horizontal, which I thought was a good thing. The damper is currently 12.5 inches eye to eye, maybe 13" if I lifted the car off the ground. But it's not just the height now, it's the fact that if things get a bit light the dampers will reach their max travel, and most likely do so with a bit of a thump. 

On to problem two;

This might not look so bad on it's own, until I mention that the right hand wheel is actually straight! Massive toe out, and that's with the adjustment fully wound in. Basically the track rod extenders are too long. This isn't actually too bad. I've bought an appropriate die off Amazon that should be arriving today. What I'll do is cut the thread on the tie rod a couple of inches further, then I can also trim the end of the rod so the extenders go further in. So a bit of extra work but nothing too bad.

I did also have this;

That's a bit too much camber. This is easy to sort, just winding out the top ball joint to give me the angle I need.

Now the last issue (for the suspension at least!);

This is a fully fitted wheel with the brake disc behind. There doesn't appear to be much engagement between the studs and the nuts. Now, the nuts are actually quite long, there's a taper that goes below the wheel surface. Giving it a quick measurement shows about 12mm engagement on threads. Given that it's an M12 stud that 'should' be ok, but my gut is suggesting that the studs just aren't long enough. I measured the studs, they're about 45mm total length with about 33mm protruding from the hub. I'm tempted to just get some longer studs, maybe 50mm or 60mm. So again, not an insurmountable issue, but something I didn't need adding to the list.