Also over the winter break in 2018 and with some cash liberated from the sale of my beloved Alfa, I set to some suspension refreshing. The need for such work wasn't severe, just things I wanted to do. About ten years before my acquisition, but not many miles, the original owner Tony had had the front strut inserts and rear shocks replaced with Bilsteins. I wanted to rebush the control arms and spring plates (I'd replaced the trailing arm bushes with Elephant items, along with all the sway bar consumables in my first round of work while the engine was still out and in pieces).
This will be fairly routine stuff for those who've been through their 911's suspension. I bought new Rebel RSR stuff for the spring plates and traded my stock front a-arms with Jim Tweet for a pair he'd already prepped with Rebel hardware but wasn't going to use. I bead blasted them and some other items (sway bars, etc) and shot them in epoxy primer then single stage black urethane (which I contend is about as durable as powder coating).
Localised prep ... nothing too radical.
Having already name-checked Craig Garrett/CGARR for his work on my cylinder heads, I also found a thread from him about modifying spring plates for ease of adjustment. The ever helpful Kyle took my sketches and supplies from McMaster and made it all work.
Some of my measurements were practical, others less so.
Tacked to check if this was what I really wanted. I'm amazed at the control a good TiG operator can deliver and was to ask Kyle for some similar delicacy when I whipped-up my own dash vents for the 924S project, out of sheet steel.
This was my first ever project where I sent anything out to get replated, and it sure made me feel like I'd arrived in the Pantheon of Real Mechanics. This stuff was done locally at a big job shop that normally does in batches of 100's of 1000's, with vats of nasty liquids bubbling away like something from a steam-punk horror movie.
I'd carefully catalogued each item. The extent to which the PET describes the pitch and length of every fastener was very cool.
It made sense to get these done, too.
Here are the spring plates almost ready for installation. Kyle did me proud.
I guess I didn't take, or save, photos of the front end, but I left the struts connected to their top mounts ... I still have noise in the front end since before this round of work which I wonder is the strut-top bushings; one day I will drop them and replace them, too. I did replace the ball joints having bought the beautiful replica ball joint nut tool from that fellow in San Diego who makes them to an incredibly high standard ... I need to look-up his name again.
Suspension and SSI jobs done in the same big push of work, IIRC during my company's winter holiday shutdown. Actually, maybe it took longer; I wasn't hurrying.
I built these risers, with adjustable feet in preparation for my home/string alignment. I've since done the same process with my 924S project and made several upgrades to improve precision and repeatability. The 911 drives straight and is wearing its tires evenly, but I think this spring I'll recheck it.
My friend Roger kindly loaned me his digital scale set, enabling me to dial in what seemed to me like fairly even numbers (with the car weighted to simulate my personal, too heavy, mass). The rear adjustment was definitely eased by the threaded modification, although when I did the rear suspension on the 924S I left the stock eccentrics stock and they weren't difficult to use.
Thanks for your interest,
John