03-30-2018, 10:11 PM
Dear diary,
Been super lazy the past 2 days but finally spent some time in the garage this evening. Took some time figuring out the strut rods. It turns out the back nut was stuck on both of them making it seem like only one end of the rods adjusted. I didn't like having the passenger side hanging on by just a few threads and the driver side one completely backed out before it got long enough, so I pulled them out to investigate. I figured it was really dumb that the bottom portion had threads but wouldn't spin. I had to clamp the rod in a vise but eventually it worked exactly the way I expected. The bottom threads are reversed so the whole thing acts a lot like my tie rods do in that if you spin the middle section one way both ends will back out and if you spin it the opposite direction it pulls both ends in.
The alignment shop told me the rods must've gotten bent since they couldn't get that one side to tighten up... They definitely didn't know what they were doing and I definitely regret trusting someone else to work on this car especially considering how much money it ended up costing me. Won't be doing that again.
Got the torsion bars in without much issue and even managed to get my steering column back on the box by myself. I get 3.5 turns lock to lock so I just moved the rotors all the way to the right and pointed the steering wheel to the left. That should have everything centered after 1.75 turns. The hard part was having to reach through the driver side window, keep the wheel straight and press down hard enough to get it to seat with one hand while holding the coupler on the box in the other hand. Realized I got a little ahead of myself because now my steering linkage was in the way a bit when I went to throw on the heat shielding but it wasn't too much of an issue.
Alignment wise I basically just need to throw on my shocks and I'll be ready to bring the car back down to get my toe dialed in. Had to exchange the chamber gauge I ordered but the new one should be in tomorrow. Basically only have 2 camber bolts on each side to deal with. The standard procedure is to bring the front one all the way out and then use the back one to dial in camber. This should give me 4-5 degrees of caster with 2-3 degrees of camber to play with. Probably just going to set it around -1.5 and see how that works out for me.
Just waiting on the exhaust still. It's actually left Front Royal this afternoon but looks like UPS only delivers in "select metro areas" on Saturdays so I'll probably be stuck waiting until super late Monday. With the aftermarket steering box and mini starter, these headers shouldn't have much issue going in at all but I'm expecting to have to have to rip both out to make it happen.
Really hoping to have this thing back together by Tuesday/Wednesday and hopefully leak-free and dialed in by Friday. I'd really like to test out the EFI and run the event in Verona but I don't want to reserve a trailer until I'm certain it will be able to run it.
Been super lazy the past 2 days but finally spent some time in the garage this evening. Took some time figuring out the strut rods. It turns out the back nut was stuck on both of them making it seem like only one end of the rods adjusted. I didn't like having the passenger side hanging on by just a few threads and the driver side one completely backed out before it got long enough, so I pulled them out to investigate. I figured it was really dumb that the bottom portion had threads but wouldn't spin. I had to clamp the rod in a vise but eventually it worked exactly the way I expected. The bottom threads are reversed so the whole thing acts a lot like my tie rods do in that if you spin the middle section one way both ends will back out and if you spin it the opposite direction it pulls both ends in.
The alignment shop told me the rods must've gotten bent since they couldn't get that one side to tighten up... They definitely didn't know what they were doing and I definitely regret trusting someone else to work on this car especially considering how much money it ended up costing me. Won't be doing that again.
Got the torsion bars in without much issue and even managed to get my steering column back on the box by myself. I get 3.5 turns lock to lock so I just moved the rotors all the way to the right and pointed the steering wheel to the left. That should have everything centered after 1.75 turns. The hard part was having to reach through the driver side window, keep the wheel straight and press down hard enough to get it to seat with one hand while holding the coupler on the box in the other hand. Realized I got a little ahead of myself because now my steering linkage was in the way a bit when I went to throw on the heat shielding but it wasn't too much of an issue.
Alignment wise I basically just need to throw on my shocks and I'll be ready to bring the car back down to get my toe dialed in. Had to exchange the chamber gauge I ordered but the new one should be in tomorrow. Basically only have 2 camber bolts on each side to deal with. The standard procedure is to bring the front one all the way out and then use the back one to dial in camber. This should give me 4-5 degrees of caster with 2-3 degrees of camber to play with. Probably just going to set it around -1.5 and see how that works out for me.
Just waiting on the exhaust still. It's actually left Front Royal this afternoon but looks like UPS only delivers in "select metro areas" on Saturdays so I'll probably be stuck waiting until super late Monday. With the aftermarket steering box and mini starter, these headers shouldn't have much issue going in at all but I'm expecting to have to have to rip both out to make it happen.
Really hoping to have this thing back together by Tuesday/Wednesday and hopefully leak-free and dialed in by Friday. I'd really like to test out the EFI and run the event in Verona but I don't want to reserve a trailer until I'm certain it will be able to run it.