Steering & Suspension
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First job was to strip the rear suspension assy down. It was in pretty good condition to be honest and didn't need too much work. The guy I collected it from said it had been sitting around in his garden for a while, this was quite evident by the amount of rust on the rear discs. |
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I then removed the rear axle beam from the wishbones. The 2 long bolts that go through the top and bottom of the diff were a complete pain. Both were completely seized solid and needed 'persuading' out with a suitably large hammer! The rear wishbones have previously been painted with what looks like hammerite, and it's all beginning to peel off, these will get the wire brush treatment next. |
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Hopefully when I collect my donor kit from Tiger the diff rubber mount will be in a serviceable condition as the one on this rear axle is past its best. |
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Spent a few hours over the last couple of days painting the rear axle, wishbones, and driveshafts. Was going to use Hammerite or Smoothrite but have never had a good experience with the stuff, and read on a lot of peoples build sites that it chips off quite easily and ends up looking a mess. Ended up using Halfords satin black enamel paint which seemed pretty good. |
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This shows the front lower track control arms, and the top rocker arms fitted in place. |
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Next up was the steering column. The std sierra column drops onto two brackets welded to the chassis, and through a collar in the drivers footwell. The column needed spacing away from the brackets to avoid fouling the upper steering universal joint. |
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I ended up using about 8 repair washers to get the correct spacing. The steering seemed very stiff once I had fitted the column. This turned out to be the nylon bush fitted to the column, it was binding in the collar welded to the chassis. A few minutes with a file sorted that one out! |
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Tiger supply some nice poly bushes for the rack. These need cutting at the bottom so they can be fitted over the rack. The mounting brackets then need drilling out with a 10mm drill bit. |
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Next up was to fit the lower part of the steering shaft. This consists of a top & middle UJ, a centre support bearing and a lower UJ. It would have been a lot easier to fit the lower UJ to the rack prior to fitting the rack, but you live and learn! |
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The Centre support is fitted to a pre drilled hole in the chassis. |
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A set of coil spring compressors are required now to fit the coil springs to the shock absorbers. Once the springs are fitted, the shocks can be bolted to the car. |
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This picture shows the area that needs grinding away underneath the mountings on the rear axle beam prior to fitting to the chassis. |
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Modified sierra legs painted and ready for fitting. |
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Front hubs hung out to dry! |
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Front hub assembled and loosely fitted up. Going to have a problem here trying to set the toe in. Despite having cut at least six threads off the rack the track rod end doesn't screw in far enough. I reckon I will have to grind about 5-10mm off the track rod end, or cut some more thread on the tie rod. |
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Got round my toe in problem by ordering an M14 x 2.0 die and cutting another 10mm of thread on each tie rod. This now gives plenty of adjustment for my tracking. |
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Once the side panels were finally fitted 'U' trim was used around the exhaust and suspension holes.. |
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The bolts for the lower arms were a pain now the side panels were on. This shows all the suspension and hubs back in place. |
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The backs of the wheels hit
the tie bars on full lock so you have restrict the lock to
lock movement on the steering rack. The first step is to remove the cable ties on the rack gaiters and pull them off the rack towards the wheel. |
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Then fit a couple of jubilee clips on each side of the tie rods. Refit the gaiters and job done. |
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I had to change the standard track control arm bushes for some heavy duty ones. The ones at the top are the std ones. |
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The easiest way to change
these would have been before I bolted the suspension
together, still nevermind! I unbolted the track control arm from its inner mounting and fulled the complete hub assy outwards. This gave enough clearance to remove the bushes. |
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Once the bushes were in place I fitted SVA nut covers to all the nuts. |
