Saturday 22 August 2015

Front suspension

Front suspension follows a similar process to the rear suspension, plenty of bushes to insert!

To recap, for those whom have not read the rear suspension post... 
  1. Clean powder coat out of the holes where the plastic bushes locate
  2. chamfer the lead edges to assist easing the bush into the suspension arm
  3. apply some copper grease and squeeze in the bush
  4. Follow up with the tubing inserted through the bush trimmed to size 
There are some photos of this process on the rear suspension post which hopefully illustrate this better than words describe!


The lower ball joint is next to fix into position. Reading other builds suggests locating the lower ball joint underneath the lower suspension arm and for the bolts to pass through top to bottom which I duly followed. Clearly something to do with suspension geometry as my logical head would have suggested fitting on top of the lower wishbone....


The upper suspension arm has the upper ball joint screwed into the threaded end. Ensure any powder coat has been cleaned out of the internal thread on the suspension arm, apply a small amount of WD40 to assist the screwing in - initially screw in to locate, fine tuning of the suspension geometry will come much later down the line after a few uninstalls and re-installs I anticipate.

Some IVA trim will need to be applied to the upper wishbone whilst the upper ball joint requires a final setup to achieve a 43mm distance between the middle of the upper ball joint and the outside edge of the lock nut.

Repeat above for both sides and then we can go about doing a test fit onto the chassis. This went well once powder cat has been cleaned from the chassis locating holes, the gaps between chassis mounting and the wishbone will require packing out with spacers and like the rear wishbone no hard and fast rule - just ensure enough spacers are packed in to pad out any gaps and remove any slackness in the fit.

So, all successfully installed, front shocks, hubs and cycle wing carriers await



 

Sunday 9 August 2015

Inner crescent panels

Two inner crescent panels are next to be fitted to the chassis and I have to say I am surprised these are not part of the starter kit which I anticipated would have had all the panels necessary to enable a full construction of the chassis.

Not sure of the logic in not including these with the starter kit apart from it providing the option to the builder of not fitting these for weight saving, personal aesthetic reasons...anyway panels sourced from GBS and ready to fit into the chassis.

Process follows previous description for panel fitting so I wont go into great line by line detail here, selective riveting on the square tubed panel and cleco'd into position as holes drilled to take rivets when finally sealed and fixed into position.