db's 66 Belvedere ***FOR SALE***

John · Post by **John** » Thu Apr 18, 13 10:33 pm

Sounds good Paul,

Can you remember what power valve you ended up with and can you remember what vac you had at light cruise?

Pete · Post by **Pete** » Thu Apr 18, 13 10:58 pm

Great news!
Not surprised about the front strut - definately race car material there... needs beefing up before you turn in hard...........

db · Post by db » Fri Apr 19, 13 11:17 am

JohnS wrote:Sounds good Paul,

Can you remember what power valve you ended up with and can you remember what vac you had at light cruise?

The pv is a 4.5. Vac i think was about 10 pootling around town.

Thanks Mossy

The struts are a fairly easy fix.
The gears I'll leave for now and see if it gets better or worse. At least I know I can free it easily with a big screwy.

The tyre's the only real problem

db · Post by db » Mon Apr 29, 13 11:19 pm

Started on the front struts tonight.

1st pic is the original bearings which were bolted through the chassis bracket with a rubber washer either side. Utter 5hite!
2nd pic- I realised cos of the angles, my new brackets would need to be different lengths.
I've left a section of the original bracket in place as my guide.
3rd pic- Show Your Workings. At the top is the abandoned Plan 'A'. On the right, the unequal bracket templates.
Pic 4. 1st mock-up. Needs a bit of tweaking but you get the general idea.

mopar_mark · Post by **mopar_mark** » Tue Apr 30, 13 12:13 am

Can't quite tell from the pics...

In the last picture, with the cardboard tabs, It looks a similar set up to my old front strut setup.

When welding the tabs, I made some equal width spacers, which went either side of the rod end. this allowed me some adjustability.

To be honest, I never had to change, as set up was bang on the money after welding, but I always liked having the ability to have some castor adjustment if needed.

Great work by the way, also love the detailed sketches in your note book too

db · Post by db » Tue Apr 30, 13 9:38 am

See, something I learned in school came in useful!! I always enjoyed Tech Drawing

I have to make accurate drawings otherwise stuff like this just doesn't make sense in my head, I can spot a lot of problems before they become metal!
I'll put spacers in like you suggest. If nothing else, it'll give me more room to weld between the brackets. Ta mate

mopar_mark · Post by **mopar_mark** » Tue Apr 30, 13 1:15 pm

db wrote:I'll put spacers in like you suggest. If nothing else, it'll give me more room to weld between the brackets. Ta mate

If you use your digital level, you can establish the set point, mark datum. Then move strut forward 1 degree, mark point. The distance between the 2 marks will give you an idea of spacer size, etc

db · Post by db » Thu May 02, 13 4:59 pm

Gotcha. I like that.

db · Post by db » Thu May 02, 13 9:48 pm

Like this Mark?
I make it exactly 0.3" (it moved slightly as I took the pic)

autofetish · Post by **autofetish** » Fri May 03, 13 1:33 pm

love this

keep up the posts

db · Post by db » Mon May 06, 13 11:44 pm

I sent the budget rod ends back and upgraded to super dooper ultra mega ones.
Bearing Man supplied the taper rollers and Namrick the nuts & bolts.
So, it was out with my trusty angle grinder and I knocked out the 4 brackets.
I found 2 stacks of washers equal to 0.3", assembled the bits and tacked the brackets into place.
I removed the bolt & rod end out of harms way before fully welding.
The sheet I used to protect everything from grinding debris and weld spatter caught fire at least 10 times

I'm chasing my engineer mate to turn proper spacers, loan me a 5/8" x 20tpi tap to lengthen the thread on the shock rod, and to turn the spring retainer plate to fit the taper bearing.

db · Post by db » Fri May 17, 13 6:48 pm

My mate Kai helped me get it all back together and set the geometry.
I used my wonderful digi spirit level, and made a very simple but very accurate toe-in gauge.

Camber is 0.5 degrees neg.
Toe-in 2mm.
Castor might be a bit much at 7 degrees, the steering's a bit heavy but very stable in a straight line!
I might pull it back to 5 and see what that's like.

I think the shocks are bottoming out so I'll up the preload a bit for now. New dampers & springs are on the long-term shopping list.