Welcome aboard. Yes we're always interested.
So posting some pictures. (its part of the LCB initiation)
I'm new to the site and this is my first posting. I hope it's not too boring!
I bought the Ron Champion book nearly 20 years ago in the hope of building a sports car with my young son. Money, space, time and divorce all
conspired to thwart my plans and the book went into hibernation. We now have a business making parts for classic cars, and new premises mean that I
have around 1500 sq ft SPARE to play in. Joy!!
I dug out the book from the loft and was tickled to read that a Mk 1/2 Escort could be bought for £25.00. Those were the days!
The new book was soon sourced along with a nice Sierra 1.8 for £600.00, and I'm off!
Work is very busy so I only get an hour a day, plus a day some weekends. I started 2 months ago and am now ready to fully weld the chassis and start
stripping the Sierra.
Although there are so many 'head scratching' moments, I soon saw that you just have to get on with it using your initiative and ignoring the
book discrepancies.
But you knew there had to be a question, and here it is.......
The suspension bushes fit into the wishbone tubes with the crush tubes in the centre. The term 'crush tubes ' suggests that the bolts
tighten the brackets onto the crush tubes, thus the crush tubes do not move with the wishbones. So when the suspension is active, do the wishbones
swivel on the rubber bushes, or do the rubber bushes swivel on the crush tubes? If the former, I'll have to grind out the seam joint on the
inside of the wishbone tubes as they would tend to grind away at the rubber bushes.
Or....
Do the bolts not tighten the brackets onto the crush tubes and rely on lock nuts so that the wishbones, bushes and crush tubes swivel on the bolts?
I hope this makes some sense.
I'll post some pics if anyone is interested
Thanks
John
Sent from John's iPad
Bolt tighten on crush tubes and the bushes turn on the crush tube.
As above :-)
Welcome aboard. Yes we're always interested.
So posting some pictures. (its part of the LCB initiation)
As above, the bush swivels on the crush tube. There's several 'debates' on here of the best way to achieve this. I chose to use a
stainless washer just slightly bigger than the crush tube at each end of it. This stops the bush sliding off the tube and minimizes the friction on
the bush as it isn't clamped in the bracket. Just my opinion of course 
I've gone a similar Haynes / Sierra route but wasn't happy using the Ford engine so went BMW
http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=198679
This may or may not help but I had two problems with my w/b bushes.
I bought enough for the front and back w/b's but found that the flange on them varied in thickness. This meant that
when inserted into a bush tube the overall dimension varied, making some assemblies longer than a crush tube.
I could have paired them up, a long with a short, and got them within reason, but opted instead for turning them in
the lathe so all were identical. When assembled in a bush tube the overall dimension was 0.3mm shorter than a crush
tube. All components now identical and universal.
When I welded my bones what was a "push in with the thumbs fit" became a "squash in the vice fit" due to weld shrinkage.
If you squash a flexible bush into a bush tube then you shrink the internal diameter, so what was a perfect fit on the crush
tube became a wee bit tight. I therefore reamed the assembled bushes with a suitable drill, in my case a 9/16".
This only removed a mere shaving but was enough to allow the crush tube to be inserted and turn freely.
After filling the gap between the bushes with grease and assembling on the chassis each wish bone could be lifted with
one finger, and would slowly drop under its own weight.
Hope this helps.
Paul G
As above, the crush tube has to be slightly longer so the suspension bracket doesn't bind on the bushes. If it does bind you end up with creaky suspension. Which is quite common on these cars.
A small and pedantic detail but you describe your bushes as rubber. The above replies seem to refer to the use of poly bushes which are designed to
rotate about the clamped up crush tubes. If you have the isolastic type RUBBER bushes your wishbone movement is provided by the FIXED rubber element
deforming under load rather than any free rotation around the central crush tube. This means with iso bushes you cannot bolt up the crush tube until
the suspension is resting under load. The two systems feel quite different when setting up. With no load the poly bushes set up should move as
described in one of the above posts. When you tighten up the isolastic system the wishbones should stay in place and will resist movement as the
rubber element has to deform.
The resistance to movement in the iso bushes will therefore contribute to the suspension set up Poly bushes should be passive
Try and avoid petroleum based grease for polybushes, many people have used it without issue but its not recommended.
When pressing poly bushes into the wishbone tubes DO NOT apply any type of grease. The poly bush to tube fit should be tight and dry to prevent any
movement, if you need to aid pressing in use soapy water only, this will dry out and leave you with a nice tight fit. Grease is the last thing you
want in a fixed interface.
[Edited on 20/12/16 by SCAR]
quote:
Originally posted by SCAR
A small and pedantic detail but you describe your bushes as rubber. The above replies seem to refer to the use of poly bushes which are designed to rotate about the clamped up crush tubes. If you have the isolastic type RUBBER bushes your wishbone movement is provided by the FIXED rubber element deforming under load rather than any free rotation around the central crush tube. This means with iso bushes you cannot bolt up the crush tube until the suspension is resting under load. The two systems feel quite different when setting up. With no load the poly bushes set up should move as described in one of the above posts. When you tighten up the isolastic system the wishbones should stay in place and will resist movement as the rubber element has to deform.
The resistance to movement in the iso bushes will therefore contribute to the suspension set up Poly bushes should be passive
Try and avoid petroleum based grease for polybushes, many people have used it without issue but its not recommended.
When pressing poly bushes into the wishbone tubes DO NOT apply any type of grease. The poly bush to tube fit should be tight and dry to prevent any movement, if you need to aid pressing in use soapy water only, this will dry out and leave you with a nice tight fit. Grease is the last thing you want in a fixed interface.
[Edited on 20/12/16 by SCAR]
Firstly, thanks for all your interest, support and replies.
I will post some pics when I can, possibly over the Christmas break.
I can see that there has been a few issues with this subject before which makes me feel a little less stupid.
Scar - yes you are correct, I said rubber but meant Poly.
It seems obvious to me now that the bushes rotate on the tubes, so thanks to all of you for putting me straight on that.
bi221e - yes, I have already spotted the issue with hole/bolt sizes. I had the brackets laser cut to book sizes. Not only we're all the
development sizes out, but there was obviously an issue with 12.5mm holes in the brackets and 12mm holes in the crush tubes. I had them re-cut to
correct sizes and 12mm holes.
I'm just starting to look at the rear uprights and I know that there are going to be problems. Again, I had the blanks laser cut to book
drawings, and I've just noticed that RU8 has 4 holes tapped M10 and I'll bet they've done the as 10mm holes! I'll check
tomorrow.
Again, thanks to you all and I really enjoy reading all your stuff.
John H S
Put your location up so people know where your from.
Metalastic rubber bushes should be assembled loose, when the car is completed and sitting on its 4 wheels then you nip the bolts up.
Get a Zetec 2.0 engine from scrap yard and consider a six speed RX8 gearbox eBay scrapyard..
Make your chassis to fit a modern engine & box..
Happy Christmas
Sorry it's been so long since my last post, and it's not that I've been busy on the Roadster, but work and other stuff.
I made up the rear uprights and sure enough, RU8 had not been cut with holes for tapping M10, but 11mm! They've recut them (foc) now so I've
finished them off now and ready to fettle and paint.
The diff came off the Sierra ok and is cleaned up and ready for painting later on. The half shafts were not a problem when driving the Sierra, but 3
of the boots are spit in 2 pieces. (Is that an mot fail?)I decided to get new shafts from my local suppliers (J&R) but they don't seem able
to match them yet. I don't know what to do on this as to renew the boots seems like a massive job!
I was expecting to need to alter the length of the shafts, as per various stuff I've read, but they seem to be ok and I'll check that when
the uprights are finally done. Of course, if I'd had to alter the length by cutting and re-welding, I'd be able to easily fit new boots.
The problem with matching the shafts seems to be that the Sierra is H Reg with what l think is R2A engine, they're saying it's R6A. All
gobbledygook to me!
Update
J&R finally gave me a pair of half shafts but they were too big to go through the back plates or uprights, and they were slightly too long so the
wishbones wouldn't move fully, so I returned them for a full refund. I'll have to fit new boots to the old shafts, the split sort, so I
don't have to fully strip the shafts.
After reading plenty of stuff on the forum re reaming front hubs, I ordered a 19mm taper reamer from Axminster. I worked out that it is about
13degrees, and the Maxi balljoint is around 6 degrees, so that's going back as well.
Does anyone have any ideas where I can borrow/hire/buy the correct reamer?
Christim's build looks spookily similar to mine!!
Sent from John's iPad
I can't work out how to upload pics, but I'll have a go tomorrow
Fitting new boots is fairly easy using stretch boots. They come with grease and a cone to stretch them over the UJ
quote:
Originally posted by johnhsmith
I don't know what to do on this as to renew the boots seems like a massive job!
I was expecting to need to alter the length of the shafts, as per various stuff I've read, but they seem to be ok and I'll check that when the uprights are finally done. Of course, if I'd had to alter the length by cutting and re-welding, I'd be able to easily fit new boots.
)
quote:
Originally posted by johnhsmith
The problem with matching the shafts seems to be that the Sierra is H Reg with what l think is R2A engine, they're saying it's R6A. All gobbledygook to me!
Re: hubs. Search on here, there was a thread recently from someone trying to find a reamer, turned out there was a company in Birmingham that had the right tool and could do the work. Probably better vfm than buying the tool just to use once!
Here you go, link to the LCB thread is in this thread on the Haynes forum: http://forums.haynes.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-13981.html
I think Procomp generally have a good rep on here and do shocks/ geo setup so perhaps you'll use them further on in your build too...
mcerd1
Yes, just like that but very rusty.
As I said, there didn't seem to be any problem with the driveshafts apart from the split boots, so I was hoping to do without a total rebuild.
£140.00 for shiny new shafts seemed like a good idea as I'm time poor.
I've now ordered split boots so I don't have to dismantle the whole things.
Thanks for that JPS, I can't believe that there is a company that might be able to do the uprights within 10 minutes drive from home. I've never heard of them but I'll contact them later this week when I get the uprights back from shotblasting. I needed a good result on something!
quote:
Originally posted by johnhsmith
mcerd1
Yes, just like that but very rusty.
As I said, there didn't seem to be any problem with the driveshafts apart from the split boots, so I was hoping to do without a total rebuild. £140.00 for shiny new shafts seemed like a good idea as I'm time poor.
I've now ordered split boots so I don't have to dismantle the whole things.