468 replies to this topic

[rally515]

Progress looks good. You've gone the way i thought you might.
Yeah when the neighbours see me using 2 spaces to work on my car, i'll pop upstairs, come out after 2 minutes, and 2 cars have magically appeared either side of mine.

 

Oh and when can i pop up for you to do mine? ;)          

 

 

It seems the most sensible to be honest, no point over complicating something as simple as containing something in an allotted space :)

 

They sound like a right bunch!, we sometimes have parking space troubles with our fellow neighbours, they just seem to dump them at the side of our house! They could at least park it properly!! Grr

 

 

Hat's off to you Cliff!

 

Cheers Ben, it's nothing as major as say....re-constructing an A-post on a 25 mini   but it's equally exciting to see the end result  .

[rally515]

Well today I've finished to basics on one side, by that I mean have the back plate welded in ( not fully till I'm sure it sits right on the ground) and my other parcel arrived so I fitted a Drop stop also today.

 

The drop stops are really machined with a spacer in that's best off on a track car in my opinion, it doesn't allow enough drop for a road car really, so with that in mind I marked it up with some tape and took roughly 5mm off of the height.

Even now I still struggled to get it in with the suspension fitted but we shall see if it need to be reduced even further once I've given it a test drive and see really how it handles and effects the control under load.

 

Also managed to turn down the other Hi-lo bar at work on Friday, so I'm all ready to start the other side tomorrow and the goal is to have it lowered to the ground and supported under it's own weight.

 

 

 

 

To weld the rear plates in properly I've decided I'll be dropping the rear subframe completely and doing it that way once I'm happy everything works well, upside welding and a piece of molten metal in my ear tonight made my mind up on that topic!!

 

See you tomorrow,

Cliff

[bigrob]

Looking good cliff. When you've ironed out the creases on the set up ( read that as guinea pig (; ) i'm going togive it a try. Only problem i have is turn down the hi-lo bar. Is there any other way of getting round it?

[rally515]

Looking good cliff. When you've ironed out the creases on the set up ( read that as guinea pig (; ) i'm going togive it a try. Only problem i have is turn down the hi-lo bar. Is there any other way of getting round it?

 

 

Hmm, there is potential in re-using the original Rob, although I put them side by side and even that's still longer than you'd like.

The problem is that if it's much longer then the end plate has to be welded further away from the end of the subframe and therefore it's not just a simple job of welding the plate on, you have to consider the strength as all that spring tension is riding literally on the welds alone.

 

I have been thinking of making little "Kits" when I've got a definitive setup sorted, personally I think It'd help keep a lot more metro's on the road long term and in-use more often for pottering about in and not just shows.

 

On the Hi-lo bar front, just thinking about it you could hacksaw it off on the spigot end and then file the spigot back into the bar, although that would take you a while

 

after the suspension is done my next goal is rear shocks and ARB, should be fun piling them all in there! Oh and after seeing what blessings Galvanising brought me on the mini subframes and my test pieces which are still outside after two years! I think it's the way forward with these too.

[Chance]

Ive got to ask...what are your reasons for ditching the hydrolastic/hydragas?

Sorry if you have said earlier

[rally515]

Ive got to ask...what are your reasons for ditching the hydrolastic/hydragas?

Sorry if you have said earlier

 

No worries Chance,

 

It's purely because they aren't being made anymore and are really an over complex system for what is a relatively simple car (both minis and metros).

It's more a question of when they are going to fail rather than if, I will remember to get some better quality photos of the units tomorrow Chance and show you a bit of questionable signs of age on the units.

they have an outer rubber "boot" and more worrying an inner rubber sectioning which separates Nitrogen from Hydrolastic fluid, now, if that was to fail which it could at any point and I was driving down the motorway at 60mph and all of a sudden my cars suspension pressure went down and slammed me onto the bump stops, what's to say it wouldn't cause a mass pile up. There's just too many question marks about safety and reliability for me, if they were manufactured at an affordable price today and there were some sort of failsafe in the system then I'd consider changing back to originality :).

 

Found a picture that better describes the rubber Diaphragm.

 

Edited by rally515, 14 March 2015 - 11:05 PM.

[Chance]

Fair enough...obviously i have them on my metro and was just curious

I know there is a Company regassing the spheres and checking they arent leaking internally

Im relatively happy with how mine perform...just part of the metro charm
Ive not heard of spheres failing randomly though, once its in your mind though it wont go away so i do understand

Will be Interesting to ssee how it performs on the road...good luck

Edited by Chance, 14 March 2015 - 11:27 PM.

[Chance]

.

Edited by Chance, 14 March 2015 - 11:25 PM.

[rally515]

Yeah that's part and parcel of it Chance  , I haven't heard of collapsing suspension when in transit either but I know it could happen so that's enough to make me feel a little in favour of a piece of coiled spring steel!  .

[rally515]

Righty-O update time!

 

Today I managed to get the car back on the ground and sitting under it's own weight on the new suspension, although it did only happen an hour or so ago as I managed to misplace the Hi-lo bar I altered, I lost it a while ago as it was originally for the other side and so I used the other hoping that I'd come across it at some point.

Never the less I found it after hours and hours wasted searching, it was in my work back after all  .

Suspension in after welding.

 

So it's good news all round having got the basics complete this weekend, afraid I don't have any pictures that are of it sitting on it's new suspension, but just before I let it down I did take a picture of the difference the Drop Stop makes, I've only fitted one to one side at the moment and you can really tell!!

 

 

Next weekend I plan to setup the Hi-los to a height that I'm happy with, currently there is a distance of 10" from hub centre to arch top, I'll be aiming for around 12.5" to 13" as per original spec.

After that I'll be dropping the rear subframe to fully seam weld the backing plates and have a good nosey at the condition of the subframe whilst I'm at it.

 

 

Cheers,

Cliff

[bigrob]

Seems like pretty quick progress. Fair play to you.
I know you're still finishing the back, but have you had any further thought on the fronts?

[rally515]

Seems like pretty quick progress. Fair play to you.
I know you're still finishing the back, but have you had any further thought on the fronts?

 

 

Yeah kind of worked quicker than I usually do today, I just wanted to make tarmac contact before Monday  .

 

The fronts will be a 2 minute job Rob (not literally ), but it's just a top plate welded in again and then tweaking the Hi-los to standard ride height, suppose I'd better put what thread count on front and back when I'm done.

[Archived4]

Fronts are a doddle compared to the rears, been done a few times now! :)

[Rocket.]

Nice work !

[bigrob]

You're putting me to shame! The speed you're progressing compared to my complete lack of effort with mine is just embarrassing haha