Is this the end? 180k miles, £3k+ bill for suspension and universal joint?

enuff_zed said:
bigwinn said:
Thought you said coupes were rubbish, all owners were deviants and a strange bunch?
Click to expand...
Slightly out of context to be honest :roll:
I don't see the appeal myself, though today was the first time I sat in one. Didn't move me.
A roadster with a solid roof? Hmmm.

However, the whole point of taking this on was nothing to do with the shape of the car.
It will save the OP over £2k on his initial quote, and also be a more complete refurbishment than he was quoted for.
The point is to help a long term owner hang on to his car and continue to enjoy it.

Makes it worth my while. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
only pulling your chain old boy

:D
 
enuff_zed said:
Last resort, but I have done once.
If I was only heating a component that was being discarded I wouldn't worry so much, but I am wary of doing too much to the hub.
Again, I think it comes down to how you're taught.
Click to expand...

I understand the worry, that sort of thinking put me off waving my blowtorch at things for years, but once you get past that it's a brilliant way of unseizing things. The heat won't carry through to the bearing race or anything important in significant amounts; the only thing to avoid is scorching brake pipes and the cabling. My chief objection to trying heat for a long time was that, whenever garages dig out a torch to shift the tie-rod adjusters, it's always oxy-acetelene which is horrendous for promoting rust afterwards - it's either too hot for the plating or it's to do with being an oxidising flame.

I was doing exactly these pinch bolts on my E46 and sheared one in half with nothing more than the breaker bar and a fair heave, thinking I might wheel out the torch if it wasn't going to play ball straight away. I didn't jump up and down on it, just got to the "go on you b'stard" stage and it went. The other side got 20 seconds of MAPP gas and, with much creaking, moved. Much regret on not doing the first side that way.

I thought about buying a new hub, but the ones on fleabay were in the same state of having had the pinch bolt cut or the head ripped off trying. Or both. So I bought a few cobolt bits and cursed not heating the thing the entire time.

Having looked at the state of these sorts of bolts, I always wonder if penetrating fluid will get very far. Go on, get a cheapy butane torch (even gentler than MAPP, I just have that 'cos plumbing) and give it a bash!
 
A slow start due to rain, dog walking, football on tv, etc.
But no rush as the parts won't arrive for a few days yet.
No signs of any rubbing in the arches, springs aren't broken. ARB bushes and drop links in good condition.
Just some very old-looking struts and springs.
Front jacked.JPG
NSF off.JPG
 
bigwinn said:
Plus what you been playing at? I did a vanos, oil change with housing gasket AND brake fluid change WITH man flu?
Click to expand...
True....but your 'helper' was the best ever! :D
 
enuff_zed said:
A slow start due to rain, dog walking, football on tv, etc.
But no rush as the parts won't arrive for a few days yet.
No signs of any rubbing in the arches, springs aren't broken. ARB bushes and drop links in good condition.
Just some very old-looking struts and springs.
Front jacked.JPG
NSF off.JPG
Click to expand...

Front without compression tool? I thought that was really difficult without that
 
pvr said:
enuff_zed said:
A slow start due to rain, dog walking, football on tv, etc.
But no rush as the parts won't arrive for a few days yet.
No signs of any rubbing in the arches, springs aren't broken. ARB bushes and drop links in good condition.
Just some very old-looking struts and springs.
Front jacked.JPG
NSF off.JPG
Click to expand...

Front without compression tool? I thought that was really difficult without that
Click to expand...
Ah no, just got the strut off the car so far.
Will need to compress the spring to rebuild it all.
As I say, going slow. Normally half a day max to get the front end done and back together, and most of that time is spent compressing springs off the car.
 
Small progress today, again due to the fact that I don't have the new parts yet so no point rushing.
Slow and steady work on the front right knuckle bolt, with copious amounts of Plusgas, saw it finally removed.
So both front struts off and on to the strip down.
Ladies and gentlemen we may have a new record! 180k on an '08 car and it is still wearing it's original shocks! Well, I say shocks: they were basically just there to fill a gap! If you take a brand new shock and lean with all your weight on it you can compress it. As soon as you relax, it will pop back out again. These ones took a single finger push and at the last time of checking haven't come back out 1mm!
This does give me encouragement that Chris should notice a slight difference after all this work. :roll:
Just as my knees were crying enough on the gravel drive the replacement intermediate steering shaft arrived from [ref]raymond.harper[/ref], cheers. :thumbsup:
When I rocked the steering wheel with weight off the front end I could feel/hear a slight knock either side of dead ahead. Not sure if it's the shaft or the rack, so I'll swap the shaft and see if it is any better.

Oh and interestingly it looks like the top mounts have been replaced at some point, but nothing else changed.
The bump stops were more or less non-existent!
Front left label.JPG
Steering shaft.JPG
 
Interesting that it passed an MOT with those shocks :o

Good to follow your progress. What happened to the soft play area on your drive to work on :fuelfire:
 
pvr said:
Interesting that it passed an MOT with those shocks :o

Good to follow your progress. What happened to the soft play area on your drive to work on :fuelfire:
Click to expand...
Hardy souls us ex-service types. Gravel IS soft play. :wink:
And all the MOT checks is for oil leaks on shocks.
Over time the gas escapes so the compartment that it lives in becomes a compressible area and the shock basically ceases to function properly. At that point it is actually worse than a basic oil-filled shock.
The gas sits in a separate part of the shock, behind a moving sealed disc. It is primarily there to apply pressure to the oil to prevent it aerating. Once the gas has gone you're stuffed.

What surprises me more is that it appears someone has fitted new top mounts to those shocks but not changed anything else!
 
pvr said:
Interesting that it passed an MOT with those shocks :o
Click to expand...

They gave up doing bounce tests when suspension got harder and bodywork got softer.

I threw my weight on the front corner of the X5 once out of curiousity and it didn't so much as blink.
 
Next update after a little break.
Autodoc delivered on Thursday afternoon but on sorting through all the bits I found a slight problem.
Bump stops 1.JPG
Bump stops 2.JPG
Both front bump stops were in bags identically labelled but the contents look like one sport and one standard. Tbf, I emailed and they immediately credited me for the wrong one, so now I am just waiting for one I found on eBay to arrive asap.

Without the bump stop I could only build one front strut so I cracked on with the LH and that's all back together now, along with a new drop link.
NSF new strut.JPG
NSF rebuilt.JPG
Closer inspection of the front ARB bushes found them to be pretty recent and in perfect condition, so no point wasting money swapping those.

I also decided to whip out the intermediate steering shaft. That turned out to be much, much easier than anticipated. Sadly however, I could see nothing wrong with it. I swapped it and fitted the spare sent by Ray just in case, but there is still a very slight knock when you rock the steering wheel about ten degrees either way. I'll grease the rack just in case, but I'm wondering if it is wear in the rack. At the moment it is more an annoyance than anything else.
Steering shafts.JPG

[ref]firefoxchris[/ref] and[ref]raymond.harper[/ref], I'll leave the two of you to decide what you want to do with the spare shaft? Perhaps [ref]Usel[/ref] could use it for another hydraulic steering conversion? Maybe a donation to club funds? Whatever, I'll hang on to it here for now.
 
bigwinn said:
Looking good Martin!
Click to expand...
Yes, it's not exactly flying along with one thing and another but very satisfying to know how much we are saving on it.
Already negated £1200 for a steering shaft.
Toying with getting the back up and doing that over the weekend, but pivoting the car from the rear on those two front axle stands on a gravel base doesn't fill me with confidence.
Luckily Chris is giving me plenty of time and space, so I think I'll play safe.
 
enuff_zed said:
[ref]firefoxchris[/ref] and[ref]raymond.harper[/ref], I'll leave the two of you to decide what you want to do with the spare shaft? Perhaps [ref]Usel[/ref] could use it for another hydraulic steering conversion? Maybe a donation to club funds? Whatever, I'll hang on to it here for now.
Click to expand...

I'm interested in it if it's going spare :thumbsup:

Money to whoever or wherever :thumbsup:
 
Usel said:
enuff_zed said:
[ref]firefoxchris[/ref] and[ref]raymond.harper[/ref], I'll leave the two of you to decide what you want to do with the spare shaft? Perhaps [ref]Usel[/ref] could use it for another hydraulic steering conversion? Maybe a donation to club funds? Whatever, I'll hang on to it here for now.
Click to expand...

I'm interested in it if it's going spare :thumbsup:

Money to whoever or wherever :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
I don't want any money for the donation of my intermediate shaft which now resides on Firefoxchris's car, just happy it has gone to a new home!
 
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