Front Setup.

With the rear sorted I turned my attention to the front. First up the front camber.

I had followed GD's video and used a 1/4" spacer at the top wishbone mount. When measured this proved to give slight +ve camber.

So I removed the 1/4" spacer and changed for 2x2mm spacers giving 4mm. This gave me a slightly better result and I had negative camber.

Correct camber is 0 - 1° negative, so Im going to leave at this for now.

With camber sorted I figured caster should be next so again I used a tip from Simon's build and also used his caster template.

Here I figure I have about 4.5° caster, GD manual say about 4° so I will see how I go with 4.5°.

Happily the other side was the same.

With camber and caster sorted I moved on to set the front toe. Step one center the rack by following GD's rotation and count method. No problem there.

Then clamp a 1m length of angle to each disc.

Measure the distance at front of the angle and then at the rear, rear minus front equals toe in.

After a bit of rotation of the tie rods I managed to get the toe within the required range of 0 - 1.5mm overal. My actual measurement is 0.812mm.

I noticed whilst doing this that the toe was changing oddly as I rotated the tie rods, after a bit of head scratching and a call to Simon we settled on the rack moving. So to stop this I inserted the steering rod to the rack UJ and clamped it down. Problem solved.

So thats the toe correct but which way are my wheels pointing. So to find out I clamped the laser level to the front disc and aimed it at the angle which was clamped over the rear axle with the chassis centerline marks aligned.

I could then mark off the front wheel alignment on each side and measure the distance between the two laser marks. The center of these two laser marks was plotted on the bar and the distance from this new centerline to the chassis center line was measured giving the aligment "error".

I then decided the best way for me to bring the alignment true was to divide the error by 2 and one one side add this distance to my plotted point and on the other side deduct it from the plotted point. Hnce giving me two Target points for the laser marks.

On the picture below S is the firts plotted point and T2 is my target for the alignment to be correct. (T is the first attempt were I went a bit wrong!!)

So all I did was wind the two tie rods until my laser lined up on the T2 points.

I rechecked the front toe and it was spot on so, all wheels pointing the correct way with front and rear toe in correct.

The final thing to set was the bump steer. Again GD's method was followed and a 1m bar placed on the floor under the one on the disc.

Here we are at "ride height" the floor bar corrected to be level with the disc bar.

Going through the full range I noticed a slight bump steer effect in full bump.

Measuring the actual range that this effect started to take place shows it to be over the last 1/2 to 1" of travel. I attempted to resolve the bump steer by moving the rack but I could not eliminate it as my rack was already at its maximum adjustment position. If this becomes a problem on the road Ill reset the steering with the rack in the mid position to give some adjustment.

So Im happy thats all sorted. I fitted the final two wheels and rolled it out into the sun for the first time!(Blogspot posting system is really screwed today, each picture I insert adds about 5 carriage returns to each line of the post!)

Rear wheels on the wagon.

With the axle finally sorted I could bolt on the shocks, no major problems here apart from not being able to use the new washers I purchased as they fouled the shock adjusters!

So I used a couple of suitable washers instead.

For the top it is clear that washers are required to space the shock in the mount.

So suitable washers purchased and fitted.

For the rear most mount I have left the bolt lose as this will be replaced with a longer bolt when the roll bars are obtained, I must say it would be significantly more helpful if GD supplied the roll bar bracket with the chassis. After all Ive had the mounts fitted to the chassis so why not supply the brackets to fit now?

Simply repeat on the other side, fit the road wheel and lower to the floor for the first time. Wahey!

Another job done!

Formats a bit naff on this post as blogger appear to be having issues, I cant sort it out.

Rigid fuel line.

Flushed with success of the brake lines I moved swiftly on to tackle the rigid fuel line.

This, like the brake pipes, comes coiled up from GD so first off I had to carefully straighten the pipe. All apart from the pre formed 90° bend at the front!

The pipe is then mounted to the top rail of the chassis on the opposite side to the rear brake line.


At the back Ive yet to fix the pipe finally in place as Ive run out of P clips but it exits about here (I think!)

(Please excuse the pile of rubbish in the background!)

So thats that, the fuel line is in.

Rear Brake pipe.

Happy that the front pipes were in I moved on to the back pipes. At this point I was glad I had the chassis up on stands as high as I could get it as there was a lot of laying on your back working underneath the chassis.

First off I fixed the rear T splitter to the location supplied by GD.

Then from here I started to form the bends and work backwards. If you asked me now I may say that this was not such a good move as trying to manipulate such a long piece of pipe was not easy.
Well in the end after a fair bit of effort the pipe was fixed to the chassis and up to the mounting block at the front. I cant say Im happy about the distorted nature of this bend and its yet to be understood if it will foul on any part of the drivetrain.

So thats it apart from the small link pipes back to the rear calipers from the T splitter. I will cover those once the rear axle is in place.

The Chassis Build Begins.

After a bit of a 4 month break from doing anything in the garage I thought I ought to press on.

First off I removed the radiator bar and tunnel top sheet to give better access to the chassis, also with the radiator bar removed it gave me a bit more room at the front of the garage.

Rust protecting the inside of the chassis.
The next job was to coat the insides of the chassis tubes with waxoil or similar, I chose Dinitrol ML cavity wax in 500ml aerosol cans instead of using a compressed air driven applicator. I ordered two but only actually needed one to complete the task as you dont want to fill the tubes up, just coat them.

The main advantage of this was that the applicator nozzle was exactly the right size to fit in through the chassis mount holes. All the chassis mounts were removed one at a time and the chassis tubes coated in sections.

Brake Pipes.
At this point I made my first of I’m sure many breaks with the normal build procedure. I decided to do my brake and fuel lines next because my running gear was not yet complete.
Adrian Beaumont, AKA Grease Monkey, very kindly drove up to Swindon to lend me his rivnut gun so that I could fit the brake lines in.

I started with the front T splitter and then started the pipe bending exercise with the front drivers side short link. This did not go too well, as I had the GD pipe kit all the pipes were to the right length and pre terminated, this meant I could not make any mistakes! Soon after getting it wrong I started to get the hang of pipe bending and the link was in.

Next I moved on to do the link across to the other front flexi pipe. This went better.

Next came the link from the T union to the mounting block.

And that’s it, the front brake lines are in.

Chassis Collection

Well it didn’t seem like so long before our summer holiday to Canada was over and it was time to collect the chassis. To be honest our holiday was so good I totally forgot that I had ordered the chassis, when I got back and there was a message from Meena on the answer phone it all came back to me. So after confirming the powder coat colour as silver and that yes I did want two roll bars a date was set for collection, October 7th.

7th October 2006 – Collection day.
After asking around on the club site and confirming that the chassis weighed under 100Kg I decided that my father in laws car could cope with the chassis on the roof rack without concern, so I loaded up both fathers and headed for GD.
When we arrived the power was out to the estate so we had to man handle the chassis through a normally doorway, luckily not such a hard job with 4 people. The chassis was hoisted up onto the roof rack and suddenly looked small!

Strapped down and secure with the chassis bolt pack and brackets, steering rack and brake pipe kit loaded into the boot we bid farewell to Andy and headed for home, checking through the sunroof periodically that nothing was moving.

Here’s the drawback of using a roof rack, the chassis gets covered in dead bugs before its even on the road!!

Once home the chassis was lowered onto axle stands in the garage where no doubt it will stay for a while.