Day 39 – Twist and Go

It’s a few days later Its Friday morning and I’m laid in bed.  The clock reads 5am.  Recently awoken by some annoying fruit loop on his way to work on a “twist and go” with a “modified” exhaust trying to get to top speed, all of 38mph, between the speed ramps down the street. All noise and no trousers – wish he’d get a proper bike. I could make better time on my mountain bike.

The problem of the sub frame and the tank was bugging me and had done so for the last couple of days.  Trying to work out where I’d messed up or was there another solution.  Then it came to me – Doh! What a pillock! After removing the tank from the donor I had cleaned up the tank. I had also flattened out the seam along the back because to was bent upwards and I couldn’t clean it properly. That was problem.  All I had to do was bend it back up and it should fit.  Wish I could get back to sleep - May as well go to work.

Back from work I took a hammer to the tank seam and “gently” put the curve back into the seam and then touched up the paint work. The sub frame now fitted like it was made to which was a relief.  Next bit to go on was the diff nose mount. I put it in place on the tyres.  The holes were the wrong size 8mm instead of 12mm.  I quickly drilled them out and mounted the front bolts.  Then I looked at the holes for the trailing arm mounts.  The diff nose mount and trailing arm mount all fasten to the same fixing plate on each side in the car so I wanted to make sure they all lined up. The lead hole lined up so I opened it up to the 12mm but the trailing two holes looked a little out.  I took the fixing plate out and compared it to the trailing arm mount they lined up fine so I guess a bit more hole adjustment on the tub.  Now here is a small dilemma the holes in the fixing plate for diff nose and the lead hole are slightly slotted.  Now when I took the rear end off the donor it came off i one piece diff, nose mount hubs etc but it is going back one bit at a time.

I decided to move on the springs as I would need them to take the weight of the hubs when I mount the differential.  The top mounts from the donor car need fitting to the new AST shock absorbers.  The rear shocks and tops went together no problem. In fact there were no spring clamps needed.  The only point of concern was I noticed that the spring was on its highest ride height setting and no clamp required.  So it was on to the front springs.  These were the opposite of the rear shocks.

I was going to take them to Kim at college to use their spring clamps as I originally thought I would need them once for this job and that would be it.  However the adjustable ride height on the shock would require the spring clamps to be used again.  So I splashed out on my own set.  I figured it would be a straight forward job.  However, that was not the case.

The first problem was the bottom spring.  It has a flat cross-section and the clamps are designed for a round cross-section this in itself is not a problem but the space between the spring and the damper cylinder was too tight to fit both clamps.  After numerous attempts each of which, when tension was applied the clamp would slip off. I was concerned I was scratching the paintwork on the shock so I taped up the clamps with some electricians tape.  I tried to compress the flat spring off the shock and make it secure with a few ty-raps.  But that didn’t work.  I tried compressing the main spring which was more traditional in that it had a round cross-section.  The problem there was the threaded shaft of the clamp was obstructing the mounting of the top mount.

I tried a number of different options but at best the compressed spring was still 10mm too tall. Now any experienced engineer will tell you horror stories of springs going flying across workshops clamps slipping/breaking and the nasty injuries incurred. And I figured if not careful I would end up with a similar tale. I tried to press the top down on to the shaft using one hand and my chest and using my other hand to tighten the centre nut.  But although I managed to get the nut on the top bearing was not lined up and it couldn’t get it to square up and maintain pressure.  I need another pair of hands.  The bottom ring on the shock has a number of holes drilled in it which I can only think are used for a special clamp tool.  I decided to leave it and searched online for a special tool.

I couldn’t find a tool online and had a word with Graham at MSC and sent him a few photos to explain the problem.  His response was the same as I had been trying at the start.  Kim called said she would pop round so armed with some large ty-raps and a second pair of hands we tried again.  With a little trial and error we manage to get the compression required and made short work of the second shock.

Mounting them on the car I then gave Kim the task of confirming my measurements on the location of the hole in the firewall for the steering column.  Having received a photo with measurements of the location of the hole from Ben I had previously marked out where I worked out the location was.  So I gave Kim all the measurement tools I had and told her to confirm it.  It may sound straight forward but with the angles don’t make for easy measuring.  Fortunately Kim agreed my mark up was accurate.  I know I have a lot of fibreglass cutting to do and Kim is not good with the dust due to her health so we mounted the suspension arms on the rear sub frame and called it a night.