Yet Another Boring Rgruppe Car – Part II, Suspension

[RWebb]

It is time to update the Fliver (again) – in fact, it is past time, but that’s how things go…
I want to do some more work on the Front Suspension.

The Back Story on the Front Suspension:

I bought this car in 1999 (and have been messing with it ever since…). This 1973.5 911T came with Carrera struts, courtesy of one of the 5 Previous Owners. They are Boge type struts. (Boge Sport Strut Assembly, 911 (1986-89), Right, 911-341-042-05, 0211-32-267-B)




Note the old-timey sway bar arm..

[al lkosmal]

the suspense is building.....

[juanbenae]

is this some r-gruppe coded message?

[RWebb]

yeh - the coded message is that my Internet service went out - rather than futz with it, I went to the garage to drill some big holes in my head - I mean some pieces of wood. But the battery on the drilll died and the other battery wasn't charged up either... so I'm back.

Just for you guys tho, I made a couple of edits above...

[RWebb]

One nice thing is that I got a bundle of receipts going back to 1988 with the car. I went through them all and summarized them in Excel. That makes it easy to review what was done, when, and to add up dollars… and they do add up.

It turns out that one of the PO’s must have replaced the struts in March, 1990. There is an entry then for $177 for the Carrera struts and front shocks. The inserts were Konis.

I guess the Bilstein struts might be a tad better as the insert would then be “upside down,” and give a better weight balance. But, I am not motivated to address such a minor issue since that would entail quite a bit of effort and expense.

In June of 1995, a receipt for “F suspension bushings, control arm assembly” indicates that the bushings were replaced. I guess they were polygraphite bushings. That is what I inherited…


After making sure the brakes worked safely, I turned my attention to the suspension. The first thing I did was to replace the old tie-rods with Turbo tie-rods in June 2001. I had a lift I could use (for rent) at the time so that made things easier.

At the time, I didn’t know about Pelican and didn’t have any ability to access online pics for these procedures.
For those who will be doing this work in the future, some useful threads on tie-rod installation are found here:

Tie rod removal

930 tie rod upgrade questions


I did not notice any real improvement in handling with the Turbo tie-rods. Of course, I had pretty old and hard tires on at the time.

In retrospect I should have gotten new tires right after I did the brakes, but I didn’t know about tire aging back then and I didn’t know the age of the tires anyway.

[RWebb]

In August 2001, I took the first step in the lightening campaign by replacing the front suspension crosspiece with an Al one. This only cost me $109 and most of that was for all new hardware.
I bored some new holes in the rock cover and put it back on; later I found a Carrera rock cover and had it powder coated and swapped the old one out.

Also, in August of 2001, I upgraded the front suspension bushings. These were supposed to be harder than stock, but softer than plastic… The local shop sold them to me, and told me that there were 4 levels of hardness, and these were Level 2 – the second softest ones and were good for a street hotrod. Later, I found out that any advise you got from this shop – the only one in town – was essentially random, if not a self-serving lie. But I didn’t know that then. I imagine that these bushings were Neatrix.

A PO had installed a couple of Zerk fittings for the bushings he installed, so that was useful. The problem is that the special silicone grease you want to use (apparently, a Dow Corning stopcock grease familiar to everyone who took chemistry classes) does not come in tubes for grease guns. As time and miles went on, it was obvious that these bushings were high on the stiction scale with a nice chorus of creaks and squeaks to serenade the driver on bumps. But the big improvement of the Elephant Racing PolyBronze bushings did not exist at that time.

I did some other work on the suspension at the same time. I pulled out the Koni inserts and sold them, and put in Bilstein HD shock (damper) inserts. I replaced the upper strut mounting plates too. The rubber in these was old and hard – I poked it with a screwdriver to test it. So it made sense to replace these too.








Here is the Art School version...

[RWebb]

I got a deal on a simple tie-bar front strut brace, so I stuck that in. I’ll probably put in the Elephant triangulated version some day.
The principles of operation behind these things have been discussed numerous times, so I won’t bore you with that…


I also pulled the front torsion bars out and checked them over for cracks, pits, etc. The front torsion bars are 22mm and have white paint on them, so I guess they are Weltmeisters. I regreased them and put them back in.

I summarized the bushing replacements using a handy diagram I found in a parts catalog.



With the bushings, shocks and camber plates replaced, it was time to turn my attention to other components (like the motor) for a while -- but that is yet another thread.


Now, I am ready for Round 2 on the front suspension.

[Peterfrans]

You might have the big washer the wrong way around on the strut.

[Peterfrans]

I found a pic to illustrate

[J P Stein]

As one of the previous owners, it's good to see you working at getting the old girl back on the road.

About all I did to it was remove a giant oil cooler mounter RSR style, put on the fender mount cooler & S type spoiler(not one of my better fab jobs, I'm afeared) and do the H-4 headlights.

Both that car & my 914 were "a bridge too far". One old guy and 2 old cars is a
bad combo. Sorry about the paint job. My PO mooved to France and supplied no info about it. It was a pretty sumboech. .....

[RWebb]

Thanks - yeh, turns out I flipped that washer over.... it's an old pic - it is now concave upward.

Also, wondering if I should put new goop on it. Some have cleaned that stuff off to make the area pretty. But the goop is there for a reason - to inhibit movement and to show if there has been any movement. I'm not clear what you'd use to put there now...

Thanks for the old pic. The paint was just part of the car buying equation. Red can be nice on a sports car, but I favor blue. It is a soothing color and I have never gotten a ticket in a blue car (except the Pontiac GTO I used to have when I was a teenager), depsite several traffic stops. I HAVE gotten tickets in a red RX-7 turbo and in a silver Boxster S (which had a red interior...).

Actually, the front S spoiler was in pretty good shape. The body/paint guy here said it needed very little work - and that was mostly for some road rash issues.

Pics of the color change and other FG body panel additions are in a thread titled
Yet Another Boring Hot Rod Rgruppe Car - Part V, Exterior & Paint,
here:

Yet Another Boring Hot Rod Rgruppe Car - Part V, Exterior & Paint

[J P Stein]

Thanks for the link, Randy. I missed the whole thing......maybe because of my hit or miss involvement with this forum....or maybe because we 914 guys are flakey. I should have known that you weren't sitting on your hands.

The car looks very good .....tho I did like the red also.

[RWebb]

sittin' on my rear....

[J P Stein]

Originally Posted by RWebb

sittin' on my rear....

As I age I find an ever increasing necessity for QBT (quality butt time).....add that to your acronym list.

[burgermeister]

Originally Posted by RWebb

Thanks - yeh, I need to turn that washer over....

Also, wondering if I should put new goop on it. Some have cleaned that stuff off to make the area pretty. But the goop is there for a reason - to inhibit movement and to show if there has been any movement. I'm not clear what you'd use to put there now...

I'm reasonably sure the goop is there to seal the area from whatever splashes up at it from below - the metal plates do a poor job sealing against liquids. Otherwise, in snowy conditions, you'd be getting salt brine leaking onto your fuse box. It certainly isn't there to inhibit movement, and showing if movement occurred could be accomplished with a paint pen ...

If you drive in wet or wintry conditions, you might just use some acrylic caulk.

[RWebb]

That's an interesting thought re sealing against liquid intrusion. Are you talking about all the the metal plates? Or just the big central one?

Why do you say the goop isn't there to inhibit movement?

[gtc]

Originally Posted by RWebb

That's an interesting thought re sealing against liquid intrusion. Are you talking about all the the metal plates? Or just the big central one?

Why do you say the goop isn't there to inhibit movement?

I don't think there's anything tricky about it... that's what the three allen bolts are for. You don't see it on most other cars because the front mounts are under the hood in open air. If you look at the rear mounts in the trunk of your typical car, it will more than likely have a plastic or rubber cap over the shock mount.

Burgermeister has a good point, and in fact I suspect that my alignment shop did not apply more goop when they last worked on my car. Since this area is typically hidden by the trunk felt, I imagine that any such leakage could easily go unnoticed.

[RWebb]

Any recommendations on what goop to use?

[burgermeister]

I'd think any decent caulk would do. Just smear it around the metal plates. Black would look better, and acrylic is easier to remove than silicone.

On my car, I use no goop - I rarely drive in the rain, and I have not seen any signs of water intrusion.

[RWebb]

I want to avoid anything with silicone in it....