'78 SC Elephant Racing Suspension Rebuild

[DG624]

I saw that you changed the rear spring plate. Did you consider the ASP adjustable spring plate?

[Craig_D]

Well, I bit the bullet and ordered the rear Poly bushings, so those will go in when I get to the rear.

I'm planning on installing the struts over the weekend and the weather's looking warm.

[Craig_D]

Originally Posted by DG624

I saw that you changed the rear spring plate. Did you consider the ASP adjustable spring plate?

No, it wasn't really on my list of need-to-do items. I think I'll be happy enough with the adjustable quick change spring plates for now (and maybe for a while).

I've been driving my car with what seems like a weak rear torsion bar, so I put my budget into the new hollow torsion bars, the custom struts with raised spindles along with Carrera brake upgrade. That didn't leave a lot of coin left for ASPs.

I did just order Poly bronze bushings for the rear spring plates, so I'm adding a little to the project, but since I'm in here and see how this stuff really works, I thought I might as well go for it.

[RWebb]

my understanding re the ASPs is that the beneift is more for racing, some for very aggressive hotrodding, and not much for say 6-7 10ths on the street

[Bob Kontak]

Oops - Did not pick up you were putting the new spring plates in regarding my old rear bushing removal. Apologies.

[winders]

Originally Posted by RWebb

my understanding re the ASPs is that the beneift is more for racing, some for very aggressive hotrodding, and not much for say 6-7 10ths on the street

I've never seen a race car with the ASP's......

Scott

[Nickshu]

Originally Posted by Craig_D

Hey Nick, I've got ER rubber bushings up front, so I can't move them through their full range...or at all. I'm feeling like I should have gone with PolyBronze, but I was trying to keep costs and NVH down. Maybe I'll spring for the PBs for the rear before I tear into it all...

Nah, the weight of the car will do it. With those big T-bars you won't articulate much anyway.

With Rubber at least you won't squeak like mine.

[ozracer]

craig did you confirm with chuck what i was saying was right? I presume you are getting his hollow tbs as well with the threaded inner spline so they can be easily withdrawn?

[Craig_D]

Originally Posted by Nickshu

Nah, the weight of the car will do it. With those big T-bars you won't articulate much anyway.

With Rubber at least you won't squeak like mine.

Haha yes, I'm sure they will articulate... I just couldn't do much with my arms. Honestly, I was a little jealous of the PB guys, because they can move their A arms up and down in the garage to have some fun.

[Craig_D]

Originally Posted by ozracer

craig did you confirm with chuck what i was saying was right? I presume you are getting his hollow tbs as well with the threaded inner spline so they can be easily withdrawn?

Hey Oz, sorry I didn't actually confirm that....I got excited about the PBs. We talked about the combo of things I have and I decided to order the PB bushings for the rear, but I'm not putting the weather sealed mono balls in the trailing arms as I already have the sport hardness rubber bushings to install. But I don't see why you wouldn't be able to get the torsion bars out with the rubber bushings, you might have to unload the T bars by loosening the spring plates to allow for more droop. Chuck for sure knows more about this, but I forgot to ask.

And I didn't get the threaded hollow T bar, but I have the standard hollow ones. I don't expect to be swapping these very often, like at the track, so I just went with standard hollow Ts. It should be a pretty good setup with Bilstein sports in the back to go with the 28mm T bar.

[ozracer]

Cool mate i guess the point i was making is that there is no advantage in buying new spring plates though at 450 bucks unless you go the whole hog to use them for what they were designed for. You could use your originals with poly bronze bushings.

[rockryno]

good to see your car today! You have quite the project on your hands. Looks like the car will be awesome when youre done!

[Craig_D]

Originally Posted by ozracer

Cool mate i guess the point i was making is that there is no advantage in buying new spring plates though at 450 bucks unless you go the whole hog to use them for what they were designed for. You could use your originals with poly bronze bushings.

True that, although there is another consideration; the cost of time to corner balance and set the height. I figured that the height adjustable spring plate would make that a much quicker process, and could save me enough of the expensive man's time, to almost even out. Plus....it's really nice looking and I'll be able to see it easy enough.

[Craig_D]

Originally Posted by rockryno

good to see your car today! You have quite the project on your hands. Looks like the car will be awesome when youre done!

Great to meet you, man. Your SC is super clean (aside from the leaky stuff...hahaha) and it should be a fun season of projects and canyon carving.

Ok so here's what got done today. First, Denver/Boulder Cars-n-Coffee to meet some folks and look at some real beauties for rides! Speaking of rides, I decided to take my '77 CB750 Cafe bike to the show, so that made it all the more fun.

At the show I met Gint, Ryan aka Rockryno, and a few other Pelicans including the other Craig! Gint and Ryan followed me back to my garage and we looked at progress on my car, plus tons of other 911/914 project talk. Good guys in this 911 club, that's for sure!

After the boys left, it was nice enough for a Mtn bike ride with the girl, some frisbee with the pup, and then grab a beer and started working on Blackjack.

Today's work:
- Undercarriage - I had to button up and torque the sway bar mounts, which are protected by the rock guard/pan. That took a little work to align the bushing mounts, but I got it done and everything in the lower front end is properly torqued (my only Snap-On tool is one of my torque wrenches....seriously love that thing)
- Struts:
- Needed to remove the taller/stock wiper seals and install the shorties
- Install the hub's bearing spacer with O-ring onto the spindle
- Attached the camber plates
- Install the A arm ball joint (Finger tight onto the A arm first, then install the strut, is how ChuckM at ER said was a good way to go).

So in the end I got both struts ready for installation, and installed the left side complete!

Here we go...

Bearing Spacer




Shortie wiper seals






Strut assembly

[ozracer]

craig I know what your saying but all the time saved in ride height adjustment is because you can pull the ER torsion bars out through the poly bronze bushings. You cant do that with your set up so they have to manually remove or pull out the spring plate like you would do on an OEM set up to re index the splines. So your not actually getting any benefit unless you buy the ER torsion bars with the threaded inserts so you can put their tool into the spring plate screw it into the torsion bar an re index the splines. I hope this makes sense.

PS Struts look great.

[Craig_D]

Continued, installing the strut onto the ball joint, and knocking that pin in. I spent a few minutes linking up the notch in the ball joint, to the slot on the strut, using a rag and adjustable grip wrench. Then I used anti-seize and tapped it in very easily.






Strut top with ER weather sealed mono ball



A beautiful sight! Strut mounted and torqued with the tie rod attached (but not adjusted).




Oh, and to answer some questions that I would have:

How did I remove that stock taller wiper seal? A big hammer and blocks of wood. It helped to warm it up.

How did I install the new shortie wiper seal?
I happend to have a 41mm inner diameter motorcycle fork seal driver which fit perfectly to tap the new wiper seal on. I tapped around the edges of the driver, spinning as I went so as to install the wiper seal evenly.

How did I get the hub/bearing spacers onto the strut spindles?
I used the same motorcycle fork seal driver with a block of wood and a 3lb hammer. Worked like a charm!

Lemme know if there are any other questions.

[Nickshu]

Lookin' good!

[javadog]

Craig,

Your project is looking good and I'm finding it harder to resist doing the same things to my car... A few questions...

The old o-rings behind the bearing spacers... what sort of shape were they in when you removed them? Shot, or looking okay?

Where did you get he shorter strut wipers? Reason you changed them?

Why did you decide to use the rubber gaiters, instead of the stock metal shields?

Thanks,
Jeff

[Craig_D]

Originally Posted by javadog

The old o-rings behind the bearing spacers... what sort of shape were they in when you removed them? Shot, or looking okay?

Where did you get he shorter strut wipers? Reason you changed them?

Why did you decide to use the rubber gaiters, instead of the stock metal shields?

Thanks Jeff, it feels good to make progress that's for sure.

The o-ring (yes, only one) looked fine when I took the spacer off. With the original Boge struts on my SC, only one side had the proper spacer which meant the side that didn't, had shot bearings. But I knocked that spacer off and the o-ring looked ok. I went ahead and bought a pair of new spacers and o-rings for my Bilsteins because I wanted fresh and equal quality on both sides.

I bought the short strut wipers from Chuck at Elephant Racing. Because I'll be lowering the car, the tall wipers can bottom out on deep compression, and since I'm doing this as a big project, I didn't want to be in the "I wish I had" situation. I'm not sure that I'll need them, but you never know.

The rubber gaiters were an idea I copied from fellow Pelican head, Trog, when he did his widebody Carrera ER upgrade. He found these VW gaiters and I thought they looked pretty good and would be light, and they are indeed considerably lighter than the metal shields.

Overal I'm pretty happy with how the project is going, but if were to do it again, I would have had Chuck at ER install the shortie wipers just to save some time/effort.

[javadog]

So Chuck didn't raise your spindles to accomodate your lower ride height?

JR