13/11/10 - The final push!

So with the axle fitted, the ORA Leading arms fitted and the car sitting on its own wheels at last there are just a couple of small jobs to do to finish off the car.

With it sat on its wheels, the first activity was to loosen off the bolts holding the leading arms in place and re-tighten them. This comes from a discussion with Darrell around the fact that the arms and bushes were installed with the axle hanging down and the car body supported on axle stands. We agreed that this could result in the rubber bushes being tightened with torsional tension them when the weight is put back onto the axle. Therefore I loosend them off before applying the car weight and then tightend them when it was sitting squarely on its wheels.

 

 

Next jib was to fit the Panhard Rods. Again this is an activity that can only be done with the car sitting on level ground on its own wheels. Those of you who have followed this website may remember that I have been playing with the concept of Adjustable Panhard Rods. These are based on the standard rods, but are cut and threaded (and re-inforced) to make them fit lifted cars. I have also been playing with replacement Panhard Rod bushes, these have proved to be very difficult to get right.

In the picture above you can see they have beent cut, threaded and angle iron fitted to strengthen them.

Here are one of the different sets of bushes I have played with.

First this was to use my press to get the bushes in. This was really hard, as one bush went in, the other would push out. I guess that this is why Suzuki make them as a single bush rather than a split pair.

Once they were fitted there was an excess of polybush standing proud of the surface.

So using a hacksaw and Stanley Knife a bit of trimming is required.

With the bushes sorted, I applied a liberal coating of Loctite Thread Locker onto the rod. The bushes and Panhard Rod are a likely source of Jimny Death Wobble so every possiblity of wobble has to be removed, all threads/nuts should be locked tight.

I then adjusted the rod length by winding it in to roughly the correct length. The chassis end of the rod was then attached to the chassis and the axle end offered up to the mounting point.

A few extra turns on the thread were needed to bring it all into line.

Then the final bolt was put in and the adjustable thread of the Rod was locked off with the locking nut.

Now for the MOT.......