just thought i'd share with you my progress this week. had a chat with steve hughes down in cranbrook, thanks to all who replied imy query on shocks and springs, but i've not listened to you all, and gone with standard springs, still we'll see. His reasoning was for a road car standard rates are tried and tested, and the adjustment in the damping from the shock itself should be fine. anywho, i've made a bit of progress, installed drive shafts, filled the diff back up with oil after nearly 18months, lets hope that hasn't caused any issues...
found one of the new hub nuts didnt fit the o/s hub, where the old one did? weird... new one off ebay on order...
also found one of the drive flanges slides easily into the wheel bearing oil seal, where as the n/s doesn't and becomes v stiff if u tap it in with a hammer???
managed to source a steering wheel from a kind fellow on locost builders, who spent a good few minutes thinking how nice and warm it was inside the balti on saturday night, and how he didn't need to be stood in the damp waiting for me to turn up! cheers Mads.
steering wheel in, i';ve managed to line up the column to near enough dead straight without straining the mounts, which leads me to think the holes in the upper column support have left it slightly on the piBB, but not enough to worry me. some sitting in car, restraining myself from brum brum noises established this
with the wheel on, i proceeded to mount the lower column support, and a nice pair of handmade brackets from some scrap i had. quite pleased how straight they are considering it was only using a dril and a jig saw. plus a finger sander to buff them a bit.
scratching my head abit about my brake res, and its bracket, which is a peice of ali, painted and bent to make a U with bolts to trap the res over the top, there is some lateral movement if really pushed, and i'm not sure i want the deciding factor to be how strong the rubber mounts which the swivel outlets is pushed through. might be being a bit picky here as its pretty solid but...
have made a hole for the hand brake which looks ok too,
noticed a hole in one of my wishbones!
and finally i'm on the look out for a zetec e 2.0 so any one know of one going for a song please let me know.
regards, Ed.
