An interesting subject line, eh? Anyway I was trying to assemble the
rear suspension last night. Some people have recommended setting the
car on her wheels with the engine, etc. installed when doing final body
alignment. The springs the accompanied my project seem too big. They
are nine leaf units with a tenth short, reversed link to boot. The
spring also seems a bit long with 46 1/2 inches between eye centers.
This puts the rear eye about 3 inches behind the shackle when the front
of the spring and the shackle are mounted in the most obvious places- in
a small box at the front and between a threaded lug on the chassis and a
well supported outrigger plate at the rear. Could someone quick measure
and describe a real set of 150 springs and send me the information?
This could help the previous owner locate the original springs. I think
that these are from one of those Scorpion tanks that I have heard so
much about lately. Do you think I could procure one of these for my
daughter? She is going to start driving next year.
I also installed new Silentbloc bushes in the spring shackles. Luckily
I didn’t install the ones in the springs :-o This was an adventure unto
itself. The inner tube and rubber were already gone. I assemble my
hacksaw (what a great name) with the blade through the hole and then
carefully sawed toward the thickest part of the shackle to split the
remaining bush shell. I could then drift the shell out of the shackle
with a small punch far enough to grab it with a pliers and
collapse/remove the shell by twisting and pulling.
I used my vise to press in the new bush- first finding a washer that was
large and thick enough to guard the inner shell and rubber from damage.
The Silentbloc was not too keen on this procedure however and stopped
sliding about half way in. By using an extension on the vise handle I
advanced it almost all of the way. I then tried the BFH and succeeded
only in buggering the bush and the shackle. I moved onto the next
shackle and bush- first cleaning, tapering, and lubricating the mating
surfaces. This careful preparation helped not one bit and the bush
stopped before sliding home. A longer persuader on the vise handle only
broke the vise. Other than making me feel pretty burly, I was an
unhappy puppy. It seems that the new bushes are a bit longer so the
stack “went solid” before the bush was home.
After some quiet reflection which amounted to my sitting on a five
gallon bucket and quietly reciting some of my favorite names for
recalcitrant mechanical objects, I pulled out the trusty Dremel and
cleaned up all of the squished, bulged, and generally mangled metal
around the areas of interest. I then found some appropriate washers and
bolts to provide a stable platform for application of brute force on the
exposed end of the bush. I adjusted my now cracked vise such that it
supported the shackle but did not block the bush. I retrieved from the
bottom shelf of my “tools I never use” cabinet the really BFH (at least
two pounds) that my sister in law had found along side the road. I
removed everything that could bounce from my work bench. Slowly the
Silentblocs surrendered to this new tactic and the day was won. Luckily
it is still (kind of) summer around here since I don’t think I could
button a shirt cuff around my right wrist for a few days.
Anyway if someone could get the spring dimension and description it
would be appreciated.
Regards,
Bill Eastman
58 fhc still recovering from yesterday’s activities, as am I
Bill, I read your account of the stubborn shackle bushes when I arrived at work
this morning. It made my day to discover that there is someone else having the
same types of problems. I thought up until now that all the badly fitting things
were only sold to me. Great piece.
Regards
Len Brighton
150fhc S824101BW
“Bill Eastman” william.eastman@medtronic.com on 10/09/99 02:01:45
Please respond to xk@jag-lovers.orgTo: xk-digest@jag-lovers.org
cc: (bcc: Len Brighton/TradeMeas/DSD)
Subject: [xk] Too much leaf in the spring and banging bushes
An interesting subject line, eh? Anyway I was trying to assemble the
rear suspension last night. Some people have recommended setting the
car on her wheels with the engine, etc. installed when doing final body
alignment. The springs the accompanied my project seem too big. They
are nine leaf units with a tenth short, reversed link to boot. The
spring also seems a bit long with 46 1/2 inches between eye centers.
This puts the rear eye about 3 inches behind the shackle when the front
of the spring and the shackle are mounted in the most obvious places- in
a small box at the front and between a threaded lug on the chassis and a
well supported outrigger plate at the rear. Could someone quick measure
and describe a real set of 150 springs and send me the information?
This could help the previous owner locate the original springs. I think
that these are from one of those Scorpion tanks that I have heard so
much about lately. Do you think I could procure one of these for my
daughter? She is going to start driving next year.
I also installed new Silentbloc bushes in the spring shackles. Luckily
I didn’t install the ones in the springs :-o This was an adventure unto
itself. The inner tube and rubber were already gone. I assemble my
hacksaw (what a great name) with the blade through the hole and then
carefully sawed toward the thickest part of the shackle to split the
remaining bush shell. I could then drift the shell out of the shackle
with a small punch far enough to grab it with a pliers and
collapse/remove the shell by twisting and pulling.
I used my vise to press in the new bush- first finding a washer that was
large and thick enough to guard the inner shell and rubber from damage.
The Silentbloc was not too keen on this procedure however and stopped
sliding about half way in. By using an extension on the vise handle I
advanced it almost all of the way. I then tried the BFH and succeeded
only in buggering the bush and the shackle. I moved onto the next
shackle and bush- first cleaning, tapering, and lubricating the mating
surfaces. This careful preparation helped not one bit and the bush
stopped before sliding home. A longer persuader on the vise handle only
broke the vise. Other than making me feel pretty burly, I was an
unhappy puppy. It seems that the new bushes are a bit longer so the
stack “went solid” before the bush was home.
After some quiet reflection which amounted to my sitting on a five
gallon bucket and quietly reciting some of my favorite names for
recalcitrant mechanical objects, I pulled out the trusty Dremel and
cleaned up all of the squished, bulged, and generally mangled metal
around the areas of interest. I then found some appropriate washers and
bolts to provide a stable platform for application of brute force on the
exposed end of the bush. I adjusted my now cracked vise such that it
supported the shackle but did not block the bush. I retrieved from the
bottom shelf of my “tools I never use” cabinet the really BFH (at least
two pounds) that my sister in law had found along side the road. I
removed everything that could bounce from my work bench. Slowly the
Silentblocs surrendered to this new tactic and the day was won. Luckily
it is still (kind of) summer around here since I don’t think I could
button a shirt cuff around my right wrist for a few days.
Anyway if someone could get the spring dimension and description it
would be appreciated.
Regards,
Bill Eastman
58 fhc still recovering from yesterday’s activities, as am I