Suspension Photos

THE DREADED WHEELS

Hi guys, not posted on my blog in a while, have been very busy with university work. We have a few major updates that we have completed and sourced for the next stage of our build.

One of our most common arguments between my dad and me was the type of wheels we where going to fit to our beautiful sports car. GBS offer a range of team dynamics Motorsport wheels in silver grey and black. These wheels are 10 to 12 spoke 15 inch wheels and are fitted to quite a lot of the zeros we have seen. I quite like the look of them however my dad didn't. He was adamant that he wanted some old school 5 spoke rounded edged wheels, nothing else would do. 

We couldn't find any new wheels that suited the style we where looking at so we started searching the second hand market. Some wheels that really stood out where the tsw stealths. They looked very similar to the wheels he was after for his Z3. 

The problem was the Z3 wheels where 5 stud and our Sierra hubs are only 4. We would have to find some wheels that had 4 studs and a spacing of 108mm between each hole in the style we where after. I racked my brain and remembered that the mk5 escort cossy had some really nice 5 spoke smooth alloys. Lucky I was correct and the stud spacing was correct for our setup. There where 3 different types of wheel size and look. 

The first where the 15 inch ronal wheels from the mk6 (mk5 facelift) escort gti 

The second where the 16 inch deep dished alloys from the cossy

The third was the 16 inch from the mk2 mondeo zetec s 

The idea would be to find a beat up set from either the reckless or ebay and get them refurbished. I ended up buying a set of 16s from ebay off an old scrapped mondeo. After getting these home I found that they were very large, especially with the chunky tires they came with. 

Because we didn't want to fit super slick tires to the car we decided to sell these wheels on and look for some more. 

The final wheels we found where from the GTI. These fit nice and the wheel to tire ratio was better. They had some deep curb marks and bubbling paint so I was quite worried after the refurb they would still be visible.

I was wrong, the chap at Danum wheel refurbishment did an absolute stunning job. The wheels came out looking brand spanking new. Not a mark in sight. 

The next job was to find some new tyres to fit on these beauties. We asked and searched around to see what suited us the best. The car would be used mainly on the road and for the odd track day. We picked up some Yokohama para 2s for 60something pounds a tyre. 

He only thing left to do now is the spray the center caps up and get them fitted

UPDATE!!!

Disaster! After all this time and effort there as one thing that we didn't consider and found out when it came to fit them…… the ET.

These wheels had an offset of ET40 which is fine for a standard sierra hubs because I looked it up. For the wheels to fit correctly on the zero they had to be ET15, slightly annoyed about this perhaps if a manual was available this could have been easily avoided.

Moving on though we kept the tires and are still looking for a decent set of wheels. 

Fitting the gearbox mount

One of the next jobs we could get on and start doing was fitting the gearbox mount. This is a rubber shoe that fits in the little bracket in the middle of the car. Unfortunately its not just a blot on job and needs some modifying in order to fit in the hole. 

Tools you may need for this job;

Hack saw

Drill with corresponding drill bits to fit the supplied bolts

measuring tools 

Polyurethane  sealant (optional)

Steady hands

The gearbox mount is a funny little rubber shoe that needs to be fitted in order to sit and locate the gearbox position. When you buy a gearbox mount unit it will not fit directly into your chassis bracket. This is because it is from a Sierra and still has the old mounting holes drilled. To modify the mount we placed the unit on top of the bracket. The mount did not sit flat with the bracket. Instead the old lugs where balancing themselves on the two opposite chassis cross members that emerge from the bottom of the tunnel. 

We marked where the lugs caused interference and cut them off with a hacksaw. This now sat snug.

We then needed to know where the four new holes where going to be placed on the mount. To align this we needed to move the gearbox into position.

We used our engine crane and some straps to align it up with the prop shaft.

Getting the Crane ready for lifting

    

Lining the gearbox up with the propshaft

Easy does it

Once the gearbox was in place we bolted it to the prop shaft with the three heavy duty bolts and spring washers. They where tightened all the way up so we knew the gearbox couldn't slide anymore forwards or backwards. Now it was time to mark the holes for the gearbox mount. We slid the mount underneath the bracket and lined it up with the gearbox foot lug (a beveled piece of steel that bolts onto the bottom of the gearbox, shown in the image below). Once here drill points were marked onto the mount and the gearbox was taken out again. 

     

With these points now marked the mount had the four holes drilled and filed out. It was now time to be fitted. The mount was placed underneath the bracket and bolted on using the bolts provided in the kit. Finally Some polyurethane sealant was used around the edges of the mount to seal the unit in place.    

Underside of the car, showing the bottom of the mount poking through

Brake calipers

For our cars callipers we decided to be adventurous. Before we purchased them I (Tom) did some research into what callipers where available for our type of setup. Naturally the first thing that came into my head was BREMBO! After seeing the classic red coloured callipers on high performance cars I thought I may as well see what sort of pricing it would be for a pair. I then found out that Brembo do not sell their callipers right out the box, they are fitted to performance cars that roll out of the show room. Armed with this new knowledge I hunted Ebay for a bargain, looking for callipers that had been pulled from old 406 coupes or alphas. A few came up but breakers were asking £400-500 for a pair of second hand ones. I also found out that they all have different brackets and may not suit my setup.

I did find some nice black callipers from and old e36 to suit sierra brackets. The only problem was that the minimum wheel size they would fit would be 17". This restricted our wheel choice so I had to have a re think.

In the end we opted to go down the route of the sierra cosworth rear callipers and standard sierra fronts. When we bought them they where covered in a gold electroplate finish. While this was fairly nice I didn't really stand out and wouldn't be noticed behind the wheel. Following our yellow and chrome theme we had the bright idea to paint them yellow. I trekked down to Halfords and picked up some yellow calliper paint. The brakes where disassembled and we began coating it. After 3 coats of paint the calliper looked O.K. the problem with the paint was if you accidentally re stroked it in the same place it would drag and when it dried smear marks could be seen. Another thing to note was the paint compound was horrible, it dried up into strings on your brush and didn't come out in white spirit. Fearing the paint would clog up our spray gun we opted to find someone who could paint them with a professional finish.

After a quick search on the internet we found a company called brake calliper specialists down in nottingham. This company specifically deal with refurbishing and painting callipers for many different types of vehicles

We sent them off to be painted. When they where delivered back to us to looked stunning, well worth it

We un boxed them and fitted the brake pads inside the callipers. This was easy for the rears, they just slot and clip in either side. The springy clip on the pads keep them in position.

A week away.....

My dads off on a cruise so its just me, the car and my common sense

Fitting the callipers was not that hard of a job. The discs were pushed onto the hubs and secured with a wheel nut while I aligned the brake onto the bracket. There are only two mounting bolts which screw and secure it in place. The problem I was having was that the actual calliper was not sitting dead centre over the disc, and was therefore fouling it when it span. To resolve this I filed the bracket lugs so it could be aligned properly. I only took a small amount off, something like 1.5mm, but it was enough to centralise it. After it had been filed washers were placed between the lug and the calliper and it was central! This same process was used for the other side so that it sits nicely and doesn't rub on the disk.

The next job to do after the bolts where torqued up was to fit both the hand brake cable and the flexi hose.

The hand brake cable should enter the calliper from the top, going through a round hole near the spring. After you thread it though the square end of the cable needs to latch onto the spring hook. The cable will be P clipped to the hub carrier at a later date so its not waving all over the place when driving. Lastly the Flexi hose was fitted to the callipers. This routes from the brake pipe that is connected to the rear union to the underside of the calliper. There are two holes on the bottom, One with a nipple end and one with an allen key fitting. The allen key fitting needs to be taken out and the flexi hose screwed into the hole. The other nipple on the underside is a breather hole and should not be taken out.

Underside of the rear calliper

Fitting the rear hubs

Once the wishbones and drive shafts had been fitted it was time to connect the reconditioned sierra hubs to the car. These hubs come in two sections, a cylindrical bearing flange and the actually hub face which fits onto the end of the drive shaft.

Tools you may need for this job;

13mm socket and spanner

Long socket set

A very large adjustable spanner or a large socket head (I am fairly sure its 42mm) 

Lithium grease

To start this job we aligned the calliper mounting brackets against the hub carrier. Its fairly simple to know which one goes no the left and right. The lugs on the bracket that hold the calliper in place should be facing outward. So if I was looking at the nearside of the car the bracket lugs should face towards me positioned to the left of the hub if I was to look at it side on. The picture on the right may explain it a little better. Once the calliper bracket is in place offer the cylinder section of the hub around the drive shaft and line the holes up. One thing to note at this point, the hubs have one flat side and a rounded side. This helps you determine which was around it sits. The flat edge should be pointing backwards and the rounded edge forwards. You may be able to see on the smaller  image that the flat face is facing to the back. Put you bolts in and tighten them up.

Now the hub faces are slightly awkward to get on and off so you may want grease both the drive shaft end and the inside of the hub before fitting it. One thing you may want to do is to torque the hub bolts down before you fit the face if you do not have a long socket end set. If you do they can be torqued up through the round access holes in the hub face. 

WARNING once the hub face is fitted and fully secured with the large nut it is dam near impossible to get off again so make sure your happy with everything before you fully tighten it up. 

When the hub is fully tightened up you should not be able to see the black seal inside the hub cylinder. Now its time to fit the callipers :)   

     

The gearbox arrives!

Exiting times! We finally picked our gearbox up from GBS.

We opted to get the MT75 gearbox for few reasons over the type 9. 

Before we bought we did our research to see the differences and pros and cons of the different gearboxes available for our build. The two main competitors were the Type 9 and MT75. 

We picked the MT75 because it was "More reliable" as it comes from a Ford transit.

Lighter, weighing 7kg less than the type 9.

More torque, not that you'd need it from a 2 litre zetec but its nice to know it'l handle 300nm

And a synchronised reverse gear, for those times you want to impress the ladies with your J turn skills

One thing that the Type 9 does have over the MT75 is the fact that the innards can be changed with much more ease. This is good for people changing cogs over for different ratios on tracks. Seen as though the car would spend more time being cleaned than on a track this factor didn't really effect our decision. 

The refurbished unit looked ace! finished off with a black spray paint, looked like it had just come from the factory. Paint was scraped off the flat edges ready for gasket fitting. Two things that we did have to find out were what the two holes in the box where for. The circular one at the front and the rectangular one in the middle. Turns out the circular one is for a taxi meter, for all the lotus 7 taxis that are running about. The square hole is for the reversing light. Our gearbox came with a plastic cover with two wires which we are hoping connect up to the loom. 

Just need to pull the engine crane out the shed to align it with the mount. 

Supreme finish

     

Low pressure pump and fuel filter

One of the next jobs we completed was fitting the fuel pump and filter to the bracket behind the differential. We used a few different tools and techniques to GBS because it suited our method of thinking.

Things you may need for this job;

An array of drill bits suitable for drilling holes for the pump and possibly the fuel bolts.
Jubilee clips
Files
A spacer (to mount the fuel filter on)
Spray paint


Firstly we created a new ally bracket from the one that was supplied. The supplied sheet had pre drilled rivnut holes which we believe where used in older versions of the car where the pump and filter where screwed into the rivnuts. We opted to rivet a newly cut piece of ally to the chassis. We measured it up and spaced the rivets accordingly.

Holes for the fuel pump were drilled and it was assembled and mounted on the little rubber bobbins provided in the pack. Remember to use PTFE tape on the ends of the pump before you screw on the brass fittings, this will prevent any leaks.

For the fuel filter a small spacer was constructed to make it sit level with the pump. We didn't want it to sit on the ally because it meant putting a bend in the pipe and although this bend may not have restricted fuel flow the arrangement of the two components on different levels looked tacky.

The spacer was constructed from a piece of old oak. I found a large piece of this oak and cut a small section off to make into the spacer. It was then given 3 coats of black spray paint before being glued with the black poly sealant to the ally. Once glued holes were drilled through the top of the wood and through the ally to thread blots through, securing the adjustable plastic tie wraps around the filter.

Finally A piece of fuel pipe was cut to length and jubilee clipped around both ends of the two components.  

I can't hold her captain, I DONT HAVE THE POWER!

Sorry about the corny Ace Ventura title but I thought it was appropriate for my next post. We have been so busy adding components to the car we didn't realise what was happening to the car trestles. As we looked from the bottom we noticed that the stands where warping. The legs had become very bowed and they didn't look stable at all. The last thing we wanted was to hear a big crash in the night and the thought of our time and money smashing on the concrete floor.

We needed to resolve this problem fast. We decided to make a dolly out of some old bits that had been left in boxes for a rainy day. The idea that it would have wheels would enable us also to move the build  around the garage or rotate it so other areas could be accessed with more ease.

To build the dolly we used;

4 rotating wheels
2 pieces of old table top
6 pieces of wood
A handfull of bolts and screws

Firstly we fitted the wheels to the bottom of the table top.

We then screwed and bolted to wood to the top of the table.

To add strength we attached another old table top onto the top of the wood struts.

It was screwed together and there you have it.  

At a later date we decided to add some side struts between the upstanding wood, just incase it needed any extra support.

Finish product, looks pretty good

We are now able to wheel the car around the garage, good job!

Brake line routing

Brake line routing is one of the first jobs you can complete but should not be rushed. The fact that the brake lines will not be seen by anyone doesn't mean that they shouldn't be neat and tidy. Before I started to bend the brake lines I had a look at some other peoples attempts and lets just say I wasn't impressed. Obviously if your bending brake lines with your fingers they wont be perfectly straight but they should be neat and hug the chassis comfortably.

Things you may need for this job:

Brake pipes
Your thumbs (preferably strong ones)

(Optional/ may be required)
A pipe cutting tool
A pipe bender
Pipe flanger
DO NOT USE PLIERS!

To start we needed to know which pipes go where. We asked at the GBS factory and we found out Naturally we thought the two front outlets on the master cylinder went to near side and offside at the front and the one on the bottom to the rear. This was not the case and after consulting GBS we found out that the outlets connect as follows;

Front outlet of the master cylinder goes to the rear.
The middle outlet of the master cylinder goes to the offside
The back underside outlet goes to the nearside.

The front outlet runs from the master cylinder and under the steering column bracket. When it gets to the central tunnel we threaded it over the cross member and down the tunnel towards the rear of the car. We threaded the pipe under the hand brake bracket and towards the splitting union at the back. 

The offside brake pipe runs from the middle outlet of the master cylinder. We ran it parallel to the first up to where it crosses over the member. It then runs down the side footwell panel and across the front drivers panel making sure it doesn't run In front of the steering column hole. Lastly it runs down the side of the chassis and bends downwards where it meets the wishbone bracket

Finally the last nearside brake pipe runs from the bottom outlet of the master cylinder. Again we ran it parallel to the other two brake pipes up to where it bends over he cross member. We then threaded it straight, continuing across one of the middle members to the passenger side footwell panel. Once here it routes the same way as the offside pipe but in an inverted fashion. Across the passenger footwell panel and along the side of the chassis and bends down at the wishbone bracket.

All 3 brake pipes running over the central cross member

Offside brake line routing running from the middle outlet
of the master cylinder.

Nearside break pipe running from the bottom outlet of the
master cylinder (yet to be P clipped)

Fitting The Drive shafts

Once the rear wishbones where on and in place we strapped them up and began wondering how the drive shafts connected to the differential. Because the Diff sits to one side there is a long and short shaft. Its easy to figure out which goes where, if you where to look at the car from the back the short one goes on the left and the larger on the right. Im pretty sure GBS label the drive shafts so you shouldn't have a problem.


The next part is very simple, all you need to do is rub some lithium grease on the end going into the diff and slide the drive shaft through the hub carrier. Once the end is in the diff you may want to turn it and push it slightly so the teeth line up and connect. You will know when its in and properly connected because it will be harder to spin.

Rest the outer end of the drive shaft on the rim of the hub carrier until you fit your hubs. When you turn one of the drive shafts the other should turn in the opposite direction, this ensures both shafts are fixed in to the diff properly. 

Photo taken from the back of the car, both drive shafts are in place 

Fitting Rear wishbones

Fitting the wishbones onto the brackets wasn't hard, It was just tedious. Looking at other blogs and builds people seemed to be fitting washers here there and everywhere. There didn't  seem to be a certain way or order of placing washers between the end of the wishbone and the bracket on the chassis. To us it made sense that you would have a small washer both sides between the bolt head and the outer side of the bracket and a large washer on the inside between both sides of the plastic bushes and the insides of the bracket.

However this was not the case, people where placing two on one side and none on the other. When we lined our wishbone up this was happening for us as well, on some brackets there was room for two washers on one side and none on the other and for other cases there was room only room for a washer either side. 

The only explanation we could come to was that the brackets had warped with the heat when being welded, which is perfectly understandable. But we were still not happy with some of the placement so my dad came up with a genius invention involving an old thread and three nuts.

The idea was to put the thread through both bracket holes and screw two nuts onto one side of the bracket, tightening the bolt in place. Then by using a spanner screwing the third bolt in an outwards direction it would push against the other bracket side and widen the gap. We just had to make sure we only widened it slightly (up to a washers width) otherwise the bracket may have cracked, which would not be good news.


We widened the few brackets we thought needed to be and fitted the washers in. The bolts where then pushed in to secure them in place. For the two bottom brackets we put the rear bracket bolt in from the front, so bolt head on the right hand side and for the other bracket we put the bolt in the oposite way so the bolt head was against the left side of the bracket.

We tried to get a washer either side, which worked better now we had widened the brackets but there was still space in some areas where we could fit two. After chatting with GBS we where informed that it doesn't really matter where they where spaced, just fit them in where you can. So as best we tried, some places needed more and some places needed less.

After both sides where on and loosely screwed we fitted the Hub carrier which was bolted to the top and bottom of the two bones. The inside of the long narrow tube was drilled out to get rid of the powder coating inside.

Lastly both the top and bottom bolts where brushed with copper grease and slid through from front to back. I didn't manage to get a photograph at the time, this photo on the right is from a later stage in the build and is just showing which way up the black hub carrier fits to the car.





  

Pressing bushes into wishbones

The next part of the build we wanted to crack on with was the rear. We already had the diff in didn't see why not we couldn't get the rear wishbones in place. However before we could fit them we had to push the plastic bushes into the wishbone ends.

Tools you may need for this job;

A powerful cordless or corded drill
A bench vice
Sanding drill attachments
Copper grease
Bush
Craft knife
Electric sanding machine

The first job is to sand all of the powder coat out of the wishbone ends. We clamped the wishbone n a vice and used an electric corded drill and several attachments to get it all out. We started with a very corse attachment and slowly progressed to a finer one and finally a round sandpaper piece.

Once there was no more black powder coat in the holes we got the bushes ready for pressing into the ends. Both the bushes and wishbone ends where covered in copper grease to allow for them to be pushed into the ends with ease. They were then held in the vice with two pieces of wood and clamped up. Once half way home we found that excess plastic built up on the edge of the hole. We used a craft knife to cut this off before continuing pushing them together.

Before they where pushed all the way in we used the metal feral to make sure the bushes could not be pushed beyond the correct amount therefore avoiding the plastic to warp. The feral's had thier sharp edges filed down on the sanding machine before being lubed up and slotted into the hole.

Now we could tighten it up in the vice as hard as we could. Once in place we cut any excess plastic off and wiped any excess copper grease off the outside.

We applied this same technique to all of the 14 rear wishbone holes. It took us about 10 hours to complete this process, and the vice leaver gives you a good gym workout!
  

Back seat Panel

The next part of the build was to put in the large panel that sits behind the seats. We used the same technique as the foot well panels in terms of setting up and riveting.

Things you may need for this job -

A drill
Measuring tools
Marker pen
Ruler
Hand clamps
Rivet gun
Cleco Inserter tool
Files
Nibbler tool (If needed)
Bench saw/ Bandsaw
Soldering iron
Portable sanding belt

A sharp (preferably new) 3mm Drill bit
3mm rivets
Cleco clips/clamps
Polyurethane sealant (Available form GBS)
Wood

We learned a few valuable lessons from riveting our first two panels on. One of them was not to rivet over the protective film covering the aluminum. The reason behind this is because the film gets trapped under the rivet and is hard to peal away when you want to take the film off. To avoid this problem we used a soldering iron and a ruler to burn a thin line through the plastic about half an inch either side of the rivet hole. This was much better than using a blade to cut through it and potentially leave scratch marks.

A set distance was measured from each end and a rivets where placed accordingly. The same distance was then used to place the next and the next rivets all the way along the sheet of ally.

Upon setting the panel in place we noticed that the sheet of ally was sitting at an angle to the bar that runs across the top of the chassis. We investigated this matter further and found out that if we riveted the sheet to the chassis the ally would distort and create a pressed effect almost like the look of a press studded sofa, which looks messy and unprofessional. We measured the angle of the gap and cut a piece of wood to this degree and length. It was then stuck to the top bar using the black poly sealant stuff. Once dry the wood was sanded using a sanding belt to remove any sharp edges and to make it smooth.

The ally was then placed back into position to see how it now sat. This time round it sat beautifully with no bend or play when it was pushed up tight against the chassis. After seeing how well this technique worked we used it to create 4 more pieces to fill in angled gaps between the two bars that run from the corners to the cross section that supports the top of the tunnel and the bottom of the rear floor pan.

Finally the pieces were sprayed with a black paint to protect them.

The aluminum was marked (for rivets) and placed back onto the chassis ready to be finally secured. We riveted across the top piece, along the diagonal bars, across the short middle bars, down the sides and along the bottom. We didn't rivet the round supporting bars because it would be fairly hard to get a rivet in the center without slipping to the slide. We added some poly sealant to the bar once it was riveted to double secure it.

Made an oopsy, the wood slipped down when drilling holes so had to re-drill. As you can see the angle inst huge but by using this spacer we avoided horrible warps in the metal like we have seen with other builds.  

 

Final rivets going in the sheet, looking good, metal looking as straight as an arrow!