Thursday 15 July 2010

Shocks!











  • I got my springs and fitted the shocks to the front. They are a really nice bit of kit.


The rears were a little bit more tricky as i didn't really think it through when ordering the shocks. I was using the old Spax shocks as a template/guide but i should have got the damper adjuster fitted 90 degree's from where they are to make it easier to adjust. Also the thrust washers at either end of the bottom pin had to be filed down to fit. other than that it went ok!

NOTE: I changed my spings on the rear from 180 lbs to 220 lbs as i could not acheive the correct ride height . The 350 lbs springs on the front are perfect for my rover V8.

update!



  • Well it's been ages since i updated, sorry about that. As you might expect i have finnished the build but i will try to continue the blog as if i wasn't as lazy as i have been!




  • So with the wishbones in i feel i must point out that the original build had fitted the upper wishbones the wrong way round. I didnt realise this until i got the car aligned , and we could'nt make the correct adjustments. In the picture you can see the offside upper wishbone, in the middle of each arm is a lump ( on the Jag these would have bump-stops in ) one of the lumps is both sides and the other arm has one lump one side. The arm with the lumps on both sides is the front .

Sunday 4 January 2009

painting finnished!











finally finnished the painting, which all was left was the underside. so glad thats over with.








Fitted the wishbones and wheel hubs. No major problems here, i just made sure from removal to re-fitting both sides of the car remained seperate to ensure the right parts were on the right side.








Fitted the pedal box ready for bleeding the brakes and ran the brake lines in and fixed. all thats left is to do is fit the front calipers after i get some new bleed nuts which i overlooked when ordering the seal kit.








The calipers went together realy well like the rears, i also added some locktite to the 4 bolts on each caliper that keep the two sides together. (pics of the calipers to follow before fitting).
As soon as the coilovers get here i will be fitting the shocks and then the calipers on the front, then the engine and gearbox back in. I am really glad to be starting to put the car back together finally!

Saturday 13 December 2008

update 3

Started to re-build the front hubs, re-bush wishbones and fit the new ball joints ( pivot joints ) . I have to say that i thought i had taken plenty of photos for info and reference but i should have doubled what i did take as I'm still getting caught out! So remember if anyone is following this blog, take tons of photos even if you think it's not significant , it probably is! Because I'm replacing the old jag bushes with poly bushes i don't know if the washers on the upper wishbone are supposed to be there. I will call Ward's again , ( poor bloke ), who have been a massive help and never once complained with all my questions .

pics to follow and a more detailed write up on the hubs and wishbone saga!

update 2


Finnished sanding the engine bay section of the chassis. Once it had been de-greased we painted it like the rest of the chassis 2 coats of hammerite smooth. I removed pretty much all of the powder coating as i have realised you get a much better finnish on clean metal as opposed to sanded paint. All thats left to do is the underside of the chassis which will take about 1 day for the 2 coats ( allowing the paint to dry ).

update 1


it's been a long time since i updated so i thought i would put a couple more entries in. The rear assembly has now been put back on the chassis. The 2 bolt that fix the lower part of the diff assembly to the chassis needed fixing. One of the bolts was cone shaped , the reason for this was the holes didnt line up quite right and can only guess that it was bodged. Luckily only the bolt was knackered and we managed to repair the thread on the chassis.


Saturday 23 August 2008

rear end done except shocks







well it's been a while but finally manged to get a day in the garage !






Got some bits from Ward Engineering ( many thanks ), and like usual forgot to order new nyloc nuts for the drive shaft output flanges and inner pivot pins for the wishbones! D'oh!






After a quick scout round and having no joy managed to get some on flea-bay! phew!






I decided to change the discs and keep the old ones as spares, ( gonna get them refaced to take of the slight pitting ). I have to say at this point that if i had to do more work on the rear diff and suspension i would advise a recon replacement on an exchange basis. The boys on the cobra club forums advised this when i told them my intentions but as usual i had to do it my way! he he. It is a real pain to get the lower wishbones in with the oil seals and thrust washers ( the air turned blue for a couple of hours! ). Once those are in it is then a fight to get the discs in as the lower wishbone gets in the way, all the methods that i could find didn't seem to help much either but got there in the end. Once they were on and torqued up it was the calipers turn. I followed my brief instructions from Ward's and they went together quite well, the only problem being i shouldn't have separated the two sides of the caliper as there are no torque setting for these 4 bolts anywhere, even Ward's couldn't help me as they don't go that far. I tightened them up as tight as i could to ensure they were at least the same as when i removed them. Fitting them to the bracket on the diff was another time consuming and frustrating event as there was virtually no room to get to the bolts, but it is possible and manged it just about. new pads fitted after that and then i cleaned and fitted the handbrake calipers complete with new pads also. All that is left is to re-fit the rear end back onto the chassis with the assistance of my good friend the neighbour.






I will fit the coil-over shocks later as i want to double check these, when i removed the coil on the first shock i lost fluid out of the shock and therefore decided it wasn't worth the risk of doing any others until i get that one checked. I'll keep you posted on what happens.