Monday 13 May 2013

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.





  

2 comments:

  1. Hi there, reading your blog with interest. Had some similar issues with my build ? I am also doing a blog.. albenwood.blogspot.co.uk or Bill's Zero Build. have a read, it may give you some ideas. my email is albenwoodcrafts@hotmail.co.uk.

    All the Best.
    Bill

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  2. Thanks for the interest Bill, had a look at your build, seems like its coming along nicely, my wishbones are now in place and i have my drive shafts and hubs in a fitted. Im slightly behind on my blog atm, just found some time to catch up with my posts so thats what im doing.

    Cheers

    Tom

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