S1 Project car - part 2 - the continuation

[Lotusfab]

"Bond is Back!", or a least an exact copy of the car at the Lotus Festival, Sunday28th August!See you there!

[jonroberts]

On 4 August 2016 at 23:23, jonroberts said:

... there is a correct way and an incorrect way to install the top ball joint - something to do with a dot or indent on the joint casting ? 

To answer my own question, the dot on the top of the casting of the adjustable top ball joints must face inwards towards the centre of the car.  If installed incorrectly you will be unable to get the camber even close.  Adjusting the camber does affect the caster angle slightly but not significantly enough to affect the caster reading as far as I could measure. 

[Paul Coleman]

Yes, both of mine face inwards.

[Lotusfab]

Thanks Jon, that's really useful. Have ordered a camber/ castor gauge too. Will have a go sorting it towards the end of the week and then take it back to quick fit. Will also see if they can edit the setting parameters to the correct ones! 

[Lotusfab]

Have started to set front camber and have ended up taking hub off! The upper ball joint would not rotate. Decided to help us all by taking the grommet off and seeing how the upper ball joint works. Firstly it is not symmetrical! So that's why there is a dot on one side. Both of my front wheels under no load have positive camber. The dots where both facing out, believe Jon is correct they must be fitted dots in! Also the upper ball joint has much more adjustment than I expected. Here are some pictures. It's hellish trying to get a ball joint splitter in. I could not remove the upper ball joint without removing the lower one first!

Seems to me the spindle of the upper BJ is offset towards the dot. Therefore if the dot is inwards the camber will be more negative.

[Lotusfab]

Just been over to Bell and Coville to get some more rubber boots as I split them removing the ball joints. They have a restored S3 for sale, immaculate in blue. One of the nicest I've seen. Apparently it will be at the Lotus festival. It's £32K.

[Lotusfab]

After a day of messing around this is not an easy job. The main problem is releasing the upper ball joint enough so that you can rotate it. The next problem is measuring castor and camber for which the wheel has to be on and the car loaded.   Visually if you rotate the upper ball joint quickly you can see the hub move in and out and forward and aft. I adjusted it to give maximum negative camber. I have not measured the castor. You really need the Hunter system on hand and a decent lift so you can adjust in situ. Plan is to adjust the toe again using the measurements and take it back to Kwik Fit. Will get them to measure and adjust anything they can. I'm hoping it will be close to the requirements. 

[Paul Coleman]

If you get some perverse kick out of this then fine but my local 4 wheel alignment centre would have charged £70 to set the whole thing up. For me that's a no brainer and not worth buggering about with.

[Lotusfab]

But would they have set it up correctly? I couldn't find anyone who wanted to take the job on. Will have to explain to the quick fit lads how to adjust it. Also I can't see any of them wanting to split the upper ball joints. I have shimmed it and adjusted it so hope it will just need a tweek! If not at some point will have to get it to S and J. 

[jonroberts]

Give it to somebody else to do ? Where's the fun in that Paul ?  You absolutely need a balljoint splitter to break the grip on the upper joint to hub attachment in order to be able to adjust the camber and its a lot of p*ssing about I agree.  

I have a copy of the Esprit S3/Turbo workshop manual and they go into a little more detail about the suspension alignment in there, in as much as their method specified to use two steel bars absolutely parallel to the hubs and measure the toe in/out from the wheel hubs.  So my 'string rectangle' method mirrors that and I found it quite easy to do.

[Lotusfab]

Thanks for the extra info Jon.

To recap, I have shimmed both rear wheels for toe in, adjusted the damper height for rear wheel camber. Adjusted the front camber and wheel toe. The Gunson camber gauge I have bought doesn't seem very accurate but will find out just how good it is.Will take car to Kwik fit Monday and see what the Hunter align system says and what difference I have achieved! 

[Paul Coleman]

1 hour ago, Lotusfab said:

But would they have set it up correctly? I couldn't find anyone who wanted to take the job on. Will have to explain to the quick fit lads how to adjust it. Also I can't see any of them wanting to split the upper ball joints. I have shimmed it and adjusted it so hope it will just need a tweek! If not at some point will have to get it to S and J. 

If you gave them the specs then yes they would absolutely have got it correct. They have done every exotic car you can imagine and alignment is all they do. Kwikfit are out of their depth with this car. I don't believe it's possible to set the bump steer on this car due to the limited clearance of the u/j on the end of the steering column.

I got SJ to do mine because I wanted to know that it handled like an Esprit should and also they have all the shims to hand of course. I had them go through the whole car when I finished restoring it. I'd already spent £20k on it and another £2k was neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things.

[jonroberts]

Fabian - you mentioned adjusting the rear camber by moving the rear damper coil bottom seating plate to lengthen/shorten the spring length - which way do you move that plate to lose negative camber, and by how much ? My rears have 2 degrees negative which I want to bring into spec before next weekend.

[Lotusfab]

Hi Jon,

you shorten the springs ( tighten the adjuster) to reduce the negative camber. My springs were way too slack initially and the car looked like it had been squashed. Used Petes figures of 51 MM from base of thread to lower part of damper screw. The only problem is the ride height increases when the springs are shortened. My ride height still looks ok and I think the camber is close. The only other way is to adjust camber is to shim the driveshaft. 

[Paul Coleman]

The driveshafts are already shimmed presumably to match the fixed length original dampers. I adjusted mine based on the length of the originals which were still on the car when I got it. SJ made no adjustments to it so it must be correct. I can measure mine tomorrow and let you know what mine are set to...

 

[Lotusfab]

Hi Paul,

would be interested to see what the rear camber is unloaded. Spoke to Steve about this problem a while ago. Shimming the driveshaft is limited to a small correction.

I have no shims fitted in the driveshafts yet!

[Lotusfab]

Bell and Covilles S3 is very nice indeed. Noted it has a rubber pad on the wiper stop. Think I'm going to fit a pad on mine as the wiper noise is excessive when it hits the stop. It also has air filters in the B post! 

[Paul Coleman]

1 minute ago, Lotusfab said:

Bell and Covilles S3 is very nice indeed. Noted it has a rubber pad on the wiper stop. Think I'm going to fit a pad on mine as the wiper noise is excessive when it hits the stop. It also has air filters in the B post! 

I used the same rubber as I made the windscreen spacers from. I think it was 4mm either 60 or 90 shore.

[Lotusfab]

Thanks.

[Lotusfab]

For info anyone adjusting the toe at the front. One turn on the steering rack track rod changes the toe by about 1/2 a degree. 

Have just finished it all, now have to wait and see how far out it is!

[Paul Coleman]

I checked my Protech shocks and there is 52mm of thread showing. I used the original (Armstrong?) shocks to set mine and I still have the original springs on the back.

[Lotusfab]

Wow that's Very close to the measurement From Pete. The rear wheels on my car looked wrong as they had far too much negative camber. The shocks had not been adjusted so I set Petes figures. It increased the ride height and reduced the wheel camber. It looked so much better. The Kwik fit readings showed the camber was still too much, so I tightened the shocks to reduce it further. There are no shims in the driveshaft connection. Will post the results when I get it remeasured. What is your rear wheel camber now?

[Paul Coleman]

I don't have any figures for the camber. You should have a shim between the gearbox output shafts and the discs?

[Lotusfab]

Mmmm the previous owner did that bit! Thought the shim went on the other side? Have just tuned the engine again using the Morgan carbtune. The tuning was off because of the exhaust replacement with the S1 stainless set up and had to weaken the mixture to pass the MOT. It's actually quite easy to tune (having had a lot if practice) with all the components correct,new or refurbed.

Managed to get it all -/+ 1 MM on the scale for the air balance. Didn't take very long. The balance was off and the no1 cylinder which was firing intermittently at idle, as the mixture was too weak. With practice you can link the sound of each cylinder to the associated Mercury tube. When a cylinder misfires you can see it on the manometer tube adjust the mixture till it runs smoothly at max rpm. All spot on now. Had a drive for about an hour - the handling is so much better after the suspension adjustments. Just  a few minor things left. The cars almost sorted for Sunday! ( minus the cleaning if course). 

[Paul Coleman]

You can see the shim here...

Have you got them on each half shaft?