another suspension rebuild--but this one's special

[Brorag]

Turkey Paw Trail
Hendersonville
Western North Carolina
bring a decanter and a candle for decanting

I could use some sacrament about right now.

OK, more suspension musings:
--order all the suspension stuff up front. Depending on how far you are from CA, you could blow a week waiting on a part you hadn't thought to order, or thought you didn't need. I will have wasted at least 2 weeks before I'm done with this project. (which reminds me, gotta make appt with Dave wearing the lab coat at the Porsche alignment thingy). I could have been wringing the peewad out of the wee beastie on tail of the dragon instead of waiting on parts....................
--make sure all the tension is off those torsion bars, or suffer the consequences. you will do this.

--The wee beastie is an '87.

For all your unfortunates out there who don't know about '87-'89s, the torsion bar has been split into two pieces to accomodate the g50 tranny, pushing the outboard torsion bar anchor further to the outside of the car--see below
prior to '87, the bar anchors were not as long:


While 87-89s are longer:



This requires taking some extra stuff off the car.

• rocker panel trim cover,
• rubber molding,
• spring cover.

[RoninLB]

those 2 large M16 bolts on the spring plate get torqued to 180 lb.ft. or the rear suspension will sag... [nice pics]

party hearty

[ratpiper71T]

This thread is great... Those headlines priceless!!

[GH85Carrera]

I invented new cuss words when I put my car back on the ground after doing my rear bushings. The car looked like a cat in heat with it's ass in the air.

I had carefully measured the angle of the dangle of the spring plates and then did the calculations but added instead of subtracted. DOH!!

OK, take it apart and try again.

[Brorag]

Next, it came time for me to replace the eccentric adjustment bolts on the rear spring arm.
Another order off to Wayne--another 1 week wait. ( I'm too cheap for fast mail [actualy, I'm almost broke][actually, I'm starting to worry about SWMBO seeing the credit card bill])
I ordered 2 of the toe adjust eccentrics. Per Dave, the white lab coat Porsche alignment guy, I should have bought all 4;

2 of these for camber adjust:


and, 2 of these (just the eccentric bolt) for toe adjust:


I was foolish enough to call back and ask whitelabcoat Dave with the alignment thingy why I needed 4 bolts at ~$65 a pop, "DON'T ASK WHY--YOU VILL DO IT OUR VAY UND YOU VILL LIKE IT!"

Chasoned, I took a 1" drive socket and breaker bar,about a quart of that loosenuptherust stuff, and a 6 foot cheaterbar to break loose those 2 large M16 BHBs(big honk'n bolts) holding the eccentrics. When I finally got them off, further inspection showed that Dave with the whitelabcoat had tried wimpily to loosen them with no success. Hence, "get new eccentrics und like it!".


Nobody wants to bother themselves with a 2nd supplier, so everybody gets them from Porsche. At ~$65 a pop (same price everywhere) for a frick’n bolt, there ought to be an opportunity for someone to come along and scoop that market--Wayne--'not a large enough demand'
I understand--people can't get the old ones off.

Re: camber adjustment, I decided to go with leaving the original eccentric as a clamping bolt and this as the mechinism for camber adjustment. The ElephantRacing guy said while many people use it for increasing rear camber, it's also used as a fine adjust for any camber range. Pelican carries it.


Dagum Krouts! Still, it’s (the car) my only vice. A (demeted) close friend of mine advised "Come to your senses, scrap that mess and get one of these".

Of course he's the expert on automotive pain--he rebuilds Citroëns.............


Go figure……………

[GH85Carrera]

Somewhere on this board is a guy that was discussing his credit card bill. His wife opened the mail and saw several large payments to Elephant Racing. She was rather upset that he was spending so much money and asked him what kind of idiot spends all that money to watch elephants race! He son was excited and asked if he can go with his dad to watch the elephants race.

[Brorag]

Hah!

One of the alignment writeups referred to worn strut mounts.
I took the strut mount assys apart yesterday, and found that so. The nuts had also come loose at some point and had been replaced with regular nuts. I vaguely remember a clunk out of the passengr front at some point several years ago also, so I may have found the primary reason for the tire wear pattern.

Ordered a set of these.

At some point soon, I'll add up the cost of all these parts and the alignment. Do I really want to know?

[Brorag]

This is my bottom line. Subtracting the front condenser/shipping, and tune up parts/shipping brings suspension rebuild parts to $1,442.09.
another alignment--add $130, for a total suspension rebuild cost of $1572.09.



blood--priceless
sweat--priceless
tears, A.K.A. eyeball sweat--priceless

OK, enough screwing around--time to get back at it.

[zippy_gg]

I tried locating the last item on your list part #:w0133-1645679 on PP and it could not find that part...

[Brorag]

there are two types, original Porsche,carried by our host, and an aftermarket that accommodates elephant racing upper strut mount bushings, so I went with them. All the other parts are from Wayne.

[Brorag]

Had other things to do in my life so I went and did them(honk Tuba).


This has been the most expensive money saving project I've yet done:

• I'm sore
• I banged my finger with a hammer
• I'm wet with sweat all the time
• It's taking much more time than I thought
• Every activity requires 2-3 times more time and effort than I figured
• I'm sore
• everything is done under the car, looking up at it's bottom, with crud of the ages falling in your eyes.
• I'm sore
• Did I mention that I'm sore? I can remember those thrilling days of yesteryear when crawling around under an old car was right up there with gaining carnal knowledge. Well, almost.
• If I had to do this again, I'd either buy the beer and share the pain with some other p-guys, or spend the $$$ and take it to my favorite p-car suspension mechanic.

I'm so old I fart dust; so enough bitc*'n. There. I feel better.

The suspension is the last system on the wee beastie not rebuilt:

• rebuilt heads
• new pistons/rings
• headers
• SWchip
• muffler
• paint
• interior
• top
• A/C
• shocks
• what did I forget?

Actually, I've only the front passenger side to complete, and then I can:

• bleed brakes.
• corner balance
• align

Scene of the crime. Note well organized workplace............




The rear passenger spring plate had the original tension set so that it was tight on the bottom rear stop bolt/spacer, so that's the way it had to go back.



This meant that reattaching the spring plate back to the trailing arm would be under some amount of pressure.
The Bently manual (420-13) instructs you to use a floor jack to manipulate the spring plate during its removal, and that the install is a reverse of removal. The problem with that is that the spring plate/floor jack combo raised the car off the jack stands befor it deflected the spring plate enough to align the spring plate and the trailing arm so that the bolts would go back in place. Also, the spring plate starts to bend outward with the application of that much force.

So, I did the following:
Place a crowbar as shown (green arrow), so that when pressure is applied by pulling the outer end of the crowbar upwards up, it draws the trailing arm/wheel assy and the spring plate together. It's useful to attach a vice-grip directly forward of the crowbar (red arrow) to prevent its sliding out of alignment when pressure is applied.



So, with that, other than bleeding the brakes, I'm done with the rear suspension.

On to the passenger front. I've gained a wealth of insight re: replacing ball joints. After reading all the advice about using a pipe wrench to get the ball joint slotted nut off the control arm assy, I immediately dismissed that as so much bunk and ordered the special slot nut wrench (~$55 + shipping).
When I began to remove said nut, it wouldn't come off! So I progressively used bigger and bigger breaker bar hoohaas to apply increasing amounts of loosening torque, including air driven impact wrenches.

Didn't budge.

So I went revisited the pipe-wrench school of thought. See below:

[GH85Carrera]

I can totally understand the sore part. BTDT.

The best part is getting the car back from final alignment and driving on suspension that you rebuilt yourself.

[Brorag]

Thanks, I needed that--can't wait to be driving on that suspension...............

As you can see, It appears that I might have overdone the whole torque thing with the photos.

This is not true.

It took all of what you see, plus 270 lbs of me hanging off the cheater end of a 6' cheater bar, to get them somebi*ches loose.




I didn't want to damage to new ball joint slot nut, so I refastened the new slot nut using the slot nut wrench as tight as I could get it and held it in place with the crenelated washer.
My concern is that it takes 184 ftlb (per Bentley) to assure it won't fall off, and I didn't have a way to apply that much torque using the wrench and the tools at hand. That wrench also had a nasty way of slipping off the slotted nut when I put the torque to it. I will probably ask lab-coat Dave at the Porsche dealership to snug up all those high-torque valued connections with his Porsche special tool kit when I get it aligned.

Maybe he should check the torque on all those suspension connections--cheaper than taking a curve on the dragon's tail and see a front a-arm continue straight into the trees...............

[rusnak]

Wow. It would have been so much easier to remove the balljoint nut with the suspension on the car. I have no idea why people want to do that on the workbench. Anyhow, good job! You can look forward to laser precise handling with new suspension bushings vs. old.

[Brorag]

Rusnak, I don't know either--just couldn't help myself-- know not to next time..................

So, whats wrong with this picture?



this is so embarrassing.............looks just like my old lab Beauford hiking his leg.

Clearly, some balancing/leveling work to do. Might it be due to the Coriolis effect (a mass moving in a rotating system experiences a force perpendicular to the direction of motion and to the axis of rotation)?

Or, maybe I screwed up the torsion settings when I put it all back together.................... Nah.......

Anyway, time to read:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/277082-corner-balance-help.html
http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/911_alignment_tips/911_alignment_tips.htm
http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/home_toe_in/home_toe_in.htm
http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/911_alignment_tips/911_alignment_tips.htm
http://www.smartracingproducts.com/installation.htm
http://members.rennlist.com/imcarthur/alignment.htm
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/578215-string-alignment-question.html
http://www.racecars360.com/Porsche_Tech/December_1992_-_Weight.html
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/217849-corner-balancing-weight-jacking-tripod-method.html

thanks, Ron.

While the passenger side spark plugs were so accessable, being that side was so hiked up, installed new plugs, wires, and dist rotor/cap. Ran OK on 2nd try--1st try 2 plugs crossed.

Close to happy hour Will bleed brakes tomorrow.

[Brorag]

OK, time to go back to Dempsys 101 project book, pp 145-147 to get the ride height fixed.
It seems to be the clearest explanation of what's going on for me.
good info on setting alignment.........................

[DUK]

Yeah, but just think now you'll be able to keep up with me. lol

[Brorag]

Well, I was gonna take the weekend and finish up, but I've lost the fight to the recliner monster. Every time I try to get out if it, the recliner monster drags me back!

• I think I watched every episode of Top Gear ever put on TV.
• I rewatched James May drink his way through France with the gnome guy.
• I rewatched him and gnome guy drink their way across California again.
• Went out yesterday to start setting up suspension and got sidetracked fixing the air compressor.

OH, THE HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HELP!!!!!

[DUK]

John, where's the pictures from yesterday??????????

We spent the day up with John and his lovely wife, Joyce (she's an angel to put up with John, lol) straightening out the "old dog hiking up his leg".

Not quite perfect yet, but close enough to take to the specialist in white coats.

And thanks again for dinner.

[Brorag]

I'm now rid of most of the hiney hike, and wee beastie is all back together again, thanks to DUK and his beautiful wife.

Those two drove for 2 hours from the far side of Charlotte, to Buzzards Roost in Hendersonville, just to get me to stop whining. Now that's friends.

Duk and I started on the car about noon, and the wives went shopping. I was Duks gofer. I supervised (watched) and replinished my electrolites (drank beer) while he let no motion go to waste.

We (he) got the car up on 4 jack stands and leveled, then did the rear. One side (driver)was about right, and the other was way out (high), so he reindexed the torsion bar and the spring bar so it came to about the same as the other side on his angle finder. In no time the rear was done.

We then bled the brakes. Actually I pumped and he did the smart end. I normally have at least 14 gallons of excess brake fluid on all surfaces within 1/2 mile at the end of the process. He collected just a few ounces in a little bottle.

On to the front. We replaced the front A/C condenser with a more efficient one, then reattached the front of the a-arms to the chassis, (the front condenser and front a-arm bracket are all together there. We used a woodworking clamp to assure the bushings and a-arm brackets were snug before tightening the brackets.

Next was the pan covering the rack/pinion assy. It was a pain, and took lots of fitting, cussing, and use of jacks, levers, and hammers. I did the hammering. DUK did the yelling when I hammered.

When we put the wheels on, two lugnuts had magically gone missing. Haven't found them yet...............

We then washed (actually, I looked like pigpen and the Duk hadn't broken the crease in his jeans) and watched James Mays do the French wine thing, then went to eat here, because me and the DUK/wife are cow and potato people.

You would think he would have at least allowed me to pay for the gas he used getting to and from the Buzzards Roost (my place), but no; he repeated 'you will pay dearly with cow and potatoes.'

I woke late this AM half dead and sore as heck, and on reflection decided that drinking 4 beers(?-I lost count)and 4 glasses of wine had absolutely nothing to do with my present condition. Maybe I'm getting too long in the tooth to be rolling around under cars on cement floors......................

Couldnt'a been that rotgut at Binion's.................................

Anyway, went out and took these pics. There is a pronounced splayed stance to the front tires. We had noticed that the prevoius day. Per DUK's input, I will lengthen the control arms and align with Mark One eyeball alignment device before taking to the Porsche alignment place. Better wait till this hangover is over with before trying that eyeball alignment...............

note that the passenger front tire is at a slight angle to the outside. (Steering wheel is straight.) Drivers front tire has the same outward orientation. Time to lengthen the control arms a bit.




the tilt is significantly lessened--drivers side still needs to come up a smigin--Dave the alignment guy can do that with the spring arm adjust.


It was hot! Drank lots of this stuff! Electrolytes, don't you know........


OK, so, what's left to do...............

• get height adjust and alignment
• vacuum and recharge A/C
• power wash wee Beaste's underside and wheelwells
• pimp engine compartment
• clean and wax exterior
• clean and condition the rag top
• oh yea, find those two missing lugnuts......................