More Front Suspension

In a proper workshop doing man things - not that kind of
man things! You have a dirty mind!!!

Previously on Front Suspension: I had fitted the bushes to the upper and lower wishbones but didn't have a vice big enough to fit the crash tubes inside the bushes... 

Luckily however there is a decent workshop at work, and Steve and Rob kindly let me loose in there. So I was able to use a proper vice and get them inserted. So easy with the right tools!

Back at the bat cave, I had to hammer the tubes into place, not as easy as you'd think. It's not a simple tap tap tap and in it goes, you properly have to twat them.

Offering up the wishbones to the car, and they don't quite fit, so I spent a fair bit of time filing the ends of the tubes down which took about an hour. I tell you what, my forearms are going to rule by the end of this project.

Wishbones fitted.

Fitting the drag links and ball joints was straight forward enough, so I figured I'd mount the wishbones. However, the bolts wouldn't fit the holes on the chassis due to it being painted, so more filing was required.

Finally the car has arms.

Springs and shocks in place.

The instructions that I have are for the Tr1ke which shares the front end with the Mevabusa, although being a 3 wheeler, it means that I have rear suspension too, which means more parts which look the same but are different. The springs are one example of this. They have different numbers on them, and I had no clue, so I broke my duck and posted on the official forums. Within minutes, a helpful chap had given me the answer (225 is front, 300 is rear), so off I went and fitted them to the shocks (I'm going to call them springs and shocks rather than coils and dampers). 

These were then fitted to the chassis and lower wishbone.

Uprights and caliper holders attached.

Next up are the uprights and associated gubbins, and this is where it got confusing as the pictures in the manual are nothing like what I have. I went through every box twice before settling on what must be them. A quick check of pics of the other builds and I'd guessed right. For anyone in the same predicament as me, I'll create a quick post on assembling these separately, but if I can figure it out I'm sure any 3 year old can.

What I haven't figured out yet is how the hubs fit on. I also have some bars to put on the inside which confused me for a little as the bolts were too long to attach them and I thought there should have been some more washers, but thinking about it, that's how the wheel arch struts attach which'll do that job.

I had wanted to fit the steering rack too, but I needed a 12mm drill and the biggest I had was 10mm, so I'll pick one up tomorrow. Instead I fitted the bushes to the rear wishbones (without the aid of the Bush Fitter 3000 [tm] you'll be glad to know).

It's starting to look a little more like a car now
rather than a climbing frame.

It's nice to see that the shocks are adjustable, I had adjustable shocks on an old mini once, they went from 1 to 24, with 24 being the stiffest. I put them on '5' under advise from my dad. The plan was to drive to my mates and then turn them up to 20 or something so that I could bounce the back end around, but even at 5 it was so stiff that the shocks went through the floor. Probably says more about the state of my mini really.