The next phase of my recent works was pretty important to the project but I neglected to take enough photos.
Having disassembled, stripped and painted the strut housings and obtained a pair of 250lb Weltmeister dual rate springs from a kindly fellow Pelican, I took all the components over to friend Steve the Pro Mechanic's shop where we assembled them. This included new Sach strut inserts, bump stops and upper mount/bearing assemblies. Steve used a high quality, heavy-duty pair of spring compressors, using great care and a gradual approach to managing all the potential energy as the springs were compressed for fitment. (I'd once bought a pair of those, but later gave them away; they were far less heavy-duty than those Steve uses.) Taking our time, drinking exquisite coffee Steve brewed and nibbling on the Biscoff cookies I'd brought along, a couple of hours later we were done. I brought them home and hung them from the inner fenders ... on the wrong sides, it turned out.
Rather than proceeding with getting the newly-rejuvenated bolted back in to the knuckles, hubs, etc, I summoned the gumption to finish-off the battle with my nemesis, the heater control valve and its partner-in-crime, Bowden cable 944 572 647 00. But yesterday, I got busy and fully reinstalled the struts.
To my relief - and this might sound shallow - the new springs have fulfilled one of their promises, to lower the front end. I want the car looking more hunkered down and less gawky-tall. A casual bump test on the front end (using my knee/weight) suggested that the new springs are NOT crazy stiff. Unscientific, I realize,
Next I installed the new NOS (and currently NLA) Boge rear shocks, also obtained from a fellow Pelican 924/44 owner. I'll need to undo their lower mounting bolts next week because I'm about to order a pair of 26mm torsion bars for the rear end, to match the 250lb front springs, which will require - among other things - dropping the torsion bar housing (again ... I'd lowered it to R&R the driveshaft tube).
I'll also need to find a pair of 477 511 515 eccentrics to accomodate the rear sway bar. Then, with some more spannering, a sprinkle of reindexing and an alignment, hopefully I'll have a road-ready car.
That brings us up to the present; thanks for stopping by,
John