Did I mention.....

...that I hate cleaning stuff, why yes I have.  The only thing I dislike more is working with and installing grubby parts!

Front suspension removed!

Removing one of the sleeves for the bushing on the lower control arm, what a PITA. It was frozen in place.

The spindle ready for it's bath!

Got a fair amount done today, got the suspension off, cleaned most of it and painted some panels/mud shields.  Not a great paint job (I think some silicone brake fluid got on it) but it's protected and hard to see once it's installed.
Cheers,

Dead Mans Curve....

I've always wondered what happened to the Jag in that song by Jan & Dean,  Since the tale is being told by the kid in the Corvette I've always maintained the the Jag pulled on through the corner and although crosswise in the road survived.  Now I wonder, Michelle I've found at least 4 different ways that RJ would have killed you, not because RJ's a bad fellow but because RJ had been keeping some bad company.

Todays discovery was that the drivers side torsion bar was not pinned in place, missing the small but important bolt that keeps the torsion bar locked into the front 'A' arm.  Had the torsion bar come out the best thing that would have happened was that the drivers side suspension would have collapsed, the worse thing would have been that the bar would have dropped out, caught and pole vaulted the car.

There have been 4 major things done poorly on the suspension that could have been dangerous, thankfully the car didn't run.  That being said the car is a good sound E Type that will run and drive much better when we are done and should be a pleasure to own.

Here's a mystery, the aluminium for the brake bottles has been dissolved

Normally the cork is enclosed in the aluminum

The drivers side getting ready to disassemble. Found that the lower ball joint nut was loose

Today was a short day but tomorrow will get the rest of the drivers side suspension off, start cleaning and painting.

Cheers

Suspension of disbelief....

Happy Monday to ya'll,  Took Miss Emmy out for a nice drive on Sunday with some friends from the car club.  Nice break from working on RJ.

The work today was reassembling the passenger side front suspension which was so much fun I did it twice, I hate it when I have leftover parts in this case three very important washers.

One interesting thing I discovered was that who ever rebuilt the engine previously took at least one significant short cut in re-installing the engine.  They/he left out the 7/16ths  bolts that fasten the reaction plate to the engine frames,  this is a big no, no because the torsion bars (springs) are not held in a fixed position and possibly even worse allow the frames to separate.  I'm wondering if this is why the alignment was so far out?

Fluid from the caliper, the brown stuff is likely water in the DOT 5  brake fluid, there was quite a bit more in the reservoirs 

Reinstalling the 'A' arms and torsion bar, a setting link is required to get the torque set correctly on the torsion bars

What's missing in this photo? Well the reaction plate on the upper right should have a bolt going through the spacer in the frame to lock the mid-portion of the car together.

Another view of the end of the reaction plate and missing bolt

The large hole is where the torsion bar sets, the plate behind it that goes across to the other side carries the load .

Suspension installed, will tighten it all up once it's back on the ground, tightening the rubber bushings in the unloaded position will tear them up, they always need to be tightened in the 'mid' position 

Ready for the rotor and caliper, waiting on new wheel bearing seals

Looks a little better and no left over parts ;-)

Tomorrow will start disassembling the drivers side, will have to drop the exhaust system to get at the bolts-Oh Joy!
Cheers,

Making bolts...

Had to do some shopping again for Michelle's car, I needed to replace/make the upper shock bolt that had to be cut to release it.  I went to my favorite 'Fastener Supply Shop' and then to the bearing shop to see If I could find some seals for the front wheel bearings and then to Home Depot for some paint for the shock absorbers.  I will have to order the seals as I couldn't source them locally, the old ones are probably original to the car as they are made of leather...

Drilling a hole in the end of the new bolt for the upper shock mount, the bolt had to be cut off, threaded and drilled to match the original.

Prior to painting it

Before cleaning

After cleaning

Hammertone Copper painted shock

Next week I'll start reassembling the suspension on the passenger side and try to get the other side disassembled.  Dreading the drivers side just a bit cause I'll likely have to drop the exhaust system...
Cheers

Hack job?

Well, I sure hope not but I had to cut the upper shock absorber bolt to get the shock out,  the bolt was completely frozen to the sleeve and there was no way it was coming out without cutting it on both sides of the shock. I have shock absorber bushings that I was able to scrounge from my parts bin but I needed the spacer as intact as possible.  Once I had it out I drilled the bolt out of the spacer and it will be reusable.

Cleaned up the axle mount after dismounting the caliper and the rotor. New lower ball joint installed too.

The shock, Armstrong brand.  Seems like a pretty nice shock now with good bushes. Hope the other side is easier to remove and is in good condition too.

Bushings installed on the parts and ready to install,  I need to clean the frames otherwise it seems like dressing up with dirty underwear ;-)

Painted the anti-roll bar and links, put the bushes in after it dried

The dirty side still to go, taking longer than I expected so may not be ready for the ABFM Michelle.

Making slow steady progress but wish it was faster.
Cheers

Raise your 'A' arm and loose your charm...

Michelle I'm glad we decided to continue on with the suspension, the first picture is of what could have been a disaster and incredibly poor workmanship potentially resulting in catastrophic failure of the front suspension .  If you look closely the mounting bracket for the top 'A' arm was mounted with bolts that were too short.  The nylock nut should have at least 2 threads beyond the nylon portion of the nut to fully engage and lock the nut, in this case you can see that the two bolts only engage the nuts about three threads and are not even close to the nylon potion of the nut that keeps it from unthreading.

In this picture the worn bushing is evident as well as the poor installation and excessive shims under the mount. 

Front view showing the thick shims 

So the question today is "why did the PO or alignment shop think that the front end needed so much camber for the front tires?" Was there damage in an accident that distorted the frame?  Was it set up for auto-crossing?  Don't know but it's interesting that it has what appear to be high end shocks on the front that are fully adjustable....

After removal of the spindle/axle/rotor. Good shot of the adjustable shock that on this side at least seems to be in good shape.

Brand of shock?  Anyone know? Has an adjustment knob on the inside that can't be seen in this photo

Lower "A' arm prior to removing the mounts and bushes, very dirty... 

Removing the old bushing, tried twisting, heating, and finally cutting (shiny area) to get it to come off.  Yes I did try penetrating oil

Pipe wrench and twisting

Cleaned and ready to install tomorrow!

Cheers

Boring day...

Kind of a boring morning at least, went over to 6 Flags (sounds like and amusement park doesn't it) to see if I could source the u-joints locally.  Was able to get a couple that should do the trick, got them home and installed them attempting to maintain the same positions of the yolks as before.  Painted the steering shaft up and got that back in the car.

Also went to Imports Parts Specialists and picked up some Redline MTL for the Transmission and some Redline gear lube for the differential.  Redline fluids have a very good reputation on JL, and the Moss box transmission will need all the help it can get! Will drain both and put in the new fluid before RJ's back on the road.

Spent the rest of the day working on the front suspension, removed the front roll bar, the bushings were shot as expected.  Will clean the bar up and set it aside till i'm ready for it.  Tomorrow will try to get the passenger side torsion bar released and the control arms off, cleaned and ready to install with the new bushes.

Just a shot of the assembled steering shaft and parts

The shiny piece is the wrench, above it is the old worn out bushing, the linkage just slid off it.

A shot of the somewhat beat up cross member, hope to be able to straighten it out a bit when I have the shock out of the way.

A better shot of the somewhat damaged area

This thing bugs me, they painted everything else black under the bonnet except for this, a piece that should be black!


Stay tuned, hope to show more progress tomorrow with the suspension.
Cheers

Steering revisited...

My plan for the day was going to be to install the steering rack and the radiator.  Like the 'fog of war' My plans came apart the moment I started on installing the blow by pipe. This is a pipe that takes the fumes from the top of the engine and pipes them into the intake's for the carbs so that the fumes get 'digested' by the engine as it's running.  to replace this piece I had to remove the hoses, the mud shield behind the right front wheel (thats ok because the mud shields have to come off to get at the bushings for the front suspension which I want to get going on this week).  So after I got that stuff out of the way I was able to work the pipe back under the carbs and between the hoses etc.   A couple of the old hoses had to be removed to accomplish this and so they were replaced at this time too,  Sounds simple but all the hose connections need to be cleaned using 'emory' cloth so there goes more time.

After the blow by pipe and hoses were taken care of I was ready to install the steering rack but I decided this would be the time to check the universal joints (u-joints) or the steering column.  Well, Michelle, this is what was making the steering bind-the bottom u-joint was completely frozen in one plain.  Since they only time this can be removed is when the radiator is out it's a good thing I checked.  Finally got the column out (have to remove the u-joint inside the cabin so that the long column can be pulled out from the front).  I had thought that maybe I could just clean and grease the u-joints and re-install them but they were to far gone-rusted to the point that they were not rebuildable.   Hope to be able to find them locally at a place called 6 flags, they've helped me in the past on this sort of thing so might be able to get them taken care of tomorrow, I hope.

Sans mud shield

Sans Radiator and steering rack, tested the fan in the picture today and good news-it works just have to figure out why they left it out of the circuit

In the far upper right you can see the blow by pipe coming out in back of the front of the carb

The frozen u-joint, The car will steer like new when we're done.

That's it for today,
Cheers

PS: Had a nice time with friends at the car show and was tickled when the 68 took 'Best in Show'

Steering my way back....

The end float is supposed to be 6-10 thousandths and I set hers to 8/1000ths

Today I was able to start assembling the steering rack, it's sure nice to work with clean painted parts! The steering had a 'sticky' spot in it before so I paid close attention to getting the tolerances correct today.

The cleaned rack & pinion ready to go

Getting the rack back together took a couple of hours so with most of the morning left I weighed the pros and cons of pulling out the radiator. Since I was going to replace all the hoses this seemed like a good time to do it.  I'm glad I did because there was still a lot of debris that came out when I ran water through it out in the yard.  After the water cleared and the boulders stopped rolling out I decided to clean it up a bit and paint it.  Fancy job? No, but it will look better and protect it.

Hose showing the coiled spring in it  that was used to keep it from collapsing, unfortunately it's almost completely disolved

The lower hose showing why it would not have been a good idea to drive the car even if it had started, something has been rubbing and eaten all the way down to the cord.  would have ruptured about the time the engine got warm if a pressure cap had been on it

The radiator getting 'flushed' out

The header tank, also taken off and flushed out, lots of debris.

Painted the radiator but kept paint off the fins, also painted the header tank with hammertone paint.  

Well, thats it for this week, next week I'll start on the suspension. I'll be cleaning it up and replacing all the bushings.
Cheers