All The Fiddly Bits

I arranged to have the suspension aligned and to get the camber and caster correct. The steering was so heavy I could barely turn the wheel. Prior to the alignment I had to locate the front wheel central in the wheel arch, they were sitting back about 12mm and looked odd

These pics don't really show the change as well as I would like but that small amount made all the difference. The alignment helped with the steering making it quite pleasant to steer, still a little heavy but ok.

It was time to take the car on it's first test drive so I bought an Unregistered Vehicle Permit and took it out on the road being not very confidant with it as the brake were not bedded in and running temperatures had not been checked however, most things went well apart from a constant clunking in the back. These are some of the picks I took on the day.

When I got back home I investigated the clunking in the back and it turned out to be the shocks knocking together.

To solve this problem I made new brackets with the pivot pin hole moved out 5mm per side and with the bell cranks over centre the shock pull apart instead of colliding.

Just to be sure about the shocks, I places a plastigage on the adjusting knobs and took the car for a 30klm drive then came back home and the gage indicated no closing of the shocks. The orange blob on the shock is the plastigage.

The door seals were fitted at this time also and that stopped a lot of rattles and noise.

For what it's worth, fitting the seats is quite difficult as the bolt from under the car and are hard to line up with the holes. A little trick I did was to get two bolts 75mm long and cut the heads of them. These are then screwed into the seat frames and form guide pins that go right through the floor. Just fit the two clear bolts then remove the two pins and everything is alined, saves a lot of time.

I guess a service station will be a regular visit

for my Cobra.