PollyMobiles Rebuild

[Low Rider]

I regularly use a Sundstrom SR100 respirator when I'm doing anything related to particulates or fumes from spraying. P3R filter and an ABEK1 are my go-tos and I always wear safety glasses, boots, nitrite gloves (dermatitis isn't nice) when I'm on the car as a minimum and ear defenders when grinding, using an impact gun etc (man they're loud!).

PPE is often considered an inconvenience until someone has an accident and realises what real inconvenience is.

Hope you get it sorted out Paul and there's no lasting damage.

 

[pollyp]

Hello.
I know what you are talking about.
I've had almost the same problem ( 2 thin metal pieces stuck inside the white part ).
Best whises Paul

Inviato dal mio SM-T585 utilizzando Tapatalk

ouch ?
cheers man

 

[pollyp]

Your visual distress reminds me of my once & only arc eye that was nearly forty years ago & had largely forgotten the pain intensity & stress. I do remember the extreme light sensitivity that I could not bear to see the brake lights of the vehicles in front on the way to the A & E at night. I could not stand daylight at all.

I did not have a clue what the problem was as I never did any welding. That ignorance changed when formally diagnosed with arc eye & hospitalised for a week at great expense to my employer sponsor in Saudi Arabia. Caused by simply walking through a steel fabrication workshop without appropriate PPE precautions to attend to a down shop overhead traveling crane electrical logic controls breakdown.

With benefit of hindsight I now consider it was due to the over excuberence of youth combined with a lack of experience ignorance at the time.

Get well soon.

yikes that sounds awful, how long were you exposed whilst walking around?
hope I never get secondary arc eye like that in future.
yesterday was soo irritating how sensitive my eye was to bright light, even when they were closed the light still got through and felt like a sharp headache and I had to cover em by hand.

feeling much better tday after it's healed abit overnight

 

[pollyp]

I regularly use a Sundstrom SR100 respirator when I'm doing anything related to particulates or fumes from spraying. P3R filter and an ABEK1 are my go-tos and I always wear safety glasses, boots, nitrite gloves (dermatitis isn't nice) when I'm on the car as a minimum and ear defenders when grinding, using an impact gun etc (man they're loud!).

PPE is often considered an inconvenience until someone has an accident and realises what real inconvenience is.

Hope you get it sorted out Paul and there's no lasting damage.

indeed, good info

cheers m8

 

[pollyp]

went up to Durham on monday to visit Josh (welded some seat subframes for his micra back in 2017) who's stripping apart his grey facelift.
I brought the seats off him for £100 (black and still pristine so I won't have to bother repairing my red seats now)
and brought his Sony DAB bluetooth stereo for £50 and just needs a £15 DAB antennae

new inner dust boot & outer protective cover for the coilover and new tie-rod end boots arrived

just £16, looks smart and much better than what I made on the sewing machine

 

[andy]

Bad news

This morning I woke up with a sore eye as though some grit is under my right eye lid.

Couldn't rub it away, it just got more inflamed, eye wash did nothing, was really annoying to blink & look at a certain angle with that sensation whilst driving.

Went to a local hospital after work to see nurse bout it.

She numbed and UV dyed the eye looking for debris scratches.
Unfortunately turns out that I have a tiny spec of metal stuck in the cornea over the iris area from grinding my welds briefly without goggles
She tried swabbing it but looks like the cornea skin has grown over it during sleep therefore creating the annoying 'bump'

Gave me antibacteria ointment but I'll have to visit another hospital's eye specialist at 8:30 before work to try remove it with a needle & magnifier

Guess Kassandra is on hold for now

Sent from my CLT-L29 using Micra Sports Club mobile app

same happened to me about 25 years ago paul, am sure some brown stuff came out my back side when the doctor put that needle near my eye, when i had me eye up against some magnifying machine, it looked massive, anyway i left sharpish, she called me a baby lmao, never did go back, and never suffered at all since.

 

[pollyp]

good new. after waiting a hour to be seen, they only needed to remove the last remaining residue of rusty metal so she quickly numbed the eye, picked the metal out with a little needle, cleaned with swab and all done in few secs ? quick & painless

 

[pollyp]

added an extra strip to the front of the arms to reinforce it

 

[pollyp]

inserted new lower spherical bearings. fits slightly loose in the housing, may need remaking in the future

regrease front & rear bushings

tie-rods also need replacing. chopped the threaded section off the old unit and welded it onto the new rose joint

taking hours to assemble & triple check the front suspensions new geometry.

notice the lower ball joint is at it's max angle whilst at full droop ? damn I should've angled it up slightly.

I've remounted the tie-rod on the top-side of the hub to clear the chassis and keep the joint at a safe working angle during full lock & full droop but I'd lose that bump-steer correction.

for some reason, the left tie-rod end is screwed in 10mm more than the RH with both hubs pointing straight and steering wheel centered. it's as though the rack itself is shifted 10mm to the left but it appears firmly anchored to the chassis mount.
I measured the hub distance from chassis and both sides are equal. ??

next job is to set the coilover bump stop position by adjusting the lower strut/hub ring and then the long process of setting ride height and realigning the camber & toe. replacing the rear spring comes afterwards.

 

[pollyp]

setting the coilover bump stop by removing the springs, adjusting the lower strut ring, jacking the wheel up till it lifts the car and check the tyre gap.
got it down to 2-5mm clearance.

lower arm sits horizontal when fully compressed and the lower ball joint sits perpendicular to the housing, it should be tilted by 20deg on the next version

fitted the springs and adjusted the top ring till it sits roughly at the correct height for now.

removed the wheel spacers now that the wheel track is abit wider, else it'll poke out too far, but this means I'll need to remachine the spigot rings shorter and fit longer wheel nuts to cover the threads.

by raising the hub up the coilover strut at full droop via the bottom adjuster ring now allows me to flip the tie-rods underneath the hub to correct bump-steer without it fouling the chassis at full lock.

still soo much fiddling needed

 

[fuzzy-hair-man]

still soo much fiddling needed

I was thinking extending the bottom arms would have effected the kingpin angle, (angle of a line from bottom ball joint to strut mount) and so effected the scrub radius, as a result the steering might feel lighter or with less feedback, especially as you've removed a spacer which will also help reduce the scrub radius.
https://images.app.goo.gl/y9iHXacBYauRUyqf8

Go too far and I think you lose too much steering feel and out feels vague or you get counter intuitive behavior.

 

[pollyp]

I was thinking extending the bottom arms would have effected the kingpin angle, (angle of a line from bottom ball joint to strut mount) and so effected the scrub radius, as a result the steering might feel lighter or with less feedback, especially as you've removed a spacer which will also help reduce the scrub radius.
https://images.app.goo.gl/y9iHXacBYauRUyqf8

Go too far and I think you lose too much steering feel and out feels vague or you get counter intuitive behavior.

looks like the axis of the bottom joint hole (and my machined extension) on the hub is actually aligned very close with the top mount joint.

when I fitted the hub, strut and arms and then spun the hub upright, the angle of the ball joint extension didn't deviate at all. so extending the joint like mine won't affect that kingpin axis as much as compared to altering the strut/upright angle via camber bolts.

 

[fuzzy-hair-man]

so extending the joint like mine won't affect that kingpin axis as much as compared to altering the strut/upright angle via camber bolts.

The 2 points of importance for a Macpherson strut are the bottom ball joint and the centre of the strut top pillow? bearing. The camber bolts bolting the hub to the strut won't effect kingpin inclination, camber adjustments that move the strut top will though.
Here's a better diagram:

https://sagarpatil860.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/images-7-jpg.jpeg

Notice where the strut bolts up isn't referenced.
You've reduced the scrub radius, this is the leverage your tyre and wheel has over your steering, too large and it feels like you're fighting the car and it's pulling you all over the place, too small and the steering lacks feel. Negative and it's probably just weird and counter intuitive, deep dish large outwards offset wheels increase scrub radius and can lead to a fighting the car feel, I'd imagine a way of calming the grabbyness of a LSD or big sticky tyres or both would be to decrease the scrub radius some.

 

[pollyp]

suspension all assembled and finally resting on all fours. looks like the longer arm mod & ball joint extension has worked widening the hubs back to where it originally was (before the longer arms & ball joint) has increased my camber adjustment back to -2.5deg

the stiffer 5kg front springs & helper springs set at the lowest position luckily rests at exactly the same ride height as before perhaps I could also remove the un-used middle adjuster ring on the strut to drop it a further 5mm.

at full lock-lock the inside of the tyres no longer rubs the chassis and clears it by 10mm, even with wheel spacers removed and set to maximum 2.5deg camber

tyres sitting abit close to the coilovers, I hope the new covers don't rub against it

a few more finishing touches needed next

 

[pollyp]

The 2 points of importance for a Macpherson strut are the bottom ball joint and the centre of the strut top pillow? bearing. The camber bolts bolting the hub to the strut won't effect kingpin inclination, camber adjustments that move the strut top will though.
Here's a better diagram:

https://sagarpatil860.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/images-7-jpg.jpeg

Notice where the strut bolts up isn't referenced.
You've reduced the scrub radius, this is the leverage your tyre and wheel has over your steering, too large and it feels like you're fighting the car and it's pulling you all over the place, too small and the steering lacks feel. Negative and it's probably just weird and counter intuitive, deep dish large outwards offset wheels increase scrub radius and can lead to a fighting the car feel, I'd imagine a way of calming the grabbyness of a LSD or big sticky tyres or both would be to decrease the scrub radius some.

both the camber bolts on the hub upright and top mount camber plates DO alter scrub radius, I've drawn a rough diagram for ya.

relative to the wheels perspective imagine the red line is the original strut/upright mounting angle and green line is when using camber bolts to sharpen that mount angle which tilt/camber the wheels in.
as you increase camber using the bolts, the kingpin inclination axis meeting the surface gets further away from the wheels centre-line thus increase scrub radius.
using camber plates is the opposite effect, more camber reduces scrub radius.

because the axis of the tapered hole in the hub upright for the bottom ball joint lines up with the top mount pivot, extending that distance along the same axis (going from the RED line oem setup to my GREEN line longer joints & arms) the inclination & scrub radius will be the same

 

[fuzzy-hair-man]

both the camber bolts on the hub upright and top mount camber plates DO alter scrub radius, I've drawn a rough diagram for ya.

Ok, I can see that, I was making the mistake of thinking of the wheel as upright and only looking at kingpin angle and not including camber.

because the axis of the tapered hole in the hub upright for the bottom ball joint lines up with the top mount pivot, extending that distance along the same axis (going from the RED line oem setup to my GREEN line longer joints & arms) the inclination & scrub radius will be the same

Is the axis the same? Obviously it's not here in front of me but having it angled down and inwards towards the centre of the car would allow a greater range of motion for the ball joint I'd have thought...
Sort of having it perpendicular to the lower arms at ride height.

I was just considering the lengthening of the bottom arms in isolation to the effects of you're ball joint spacers, i think it's likely a positive change for several reasons, was just thinking it was worth considering but you're probably more correcting for previous geometry changes...

 

[pollyp]

Is the axis the same? Obviously it's not here in front of me but having it angled down and inwards towards the centre of the car would allow a greater range of motion for the ball joint I'd have thought...
Sort of having it perpendicular to the lower arms at ride height.

it's roughly pointing at the top mount region.

note that the end of the original suspension arm containing the ball joint is actually tilted upwards to suit the angle of that hub taper hole.
now that I've lowered the ball joint & extended the arm, it's increased that ball joint angle so much that it's at the bearings limit during full droop, so I will need to change that arm tilt angle next time.

I was just considering the lengthening of the bottom arms in isolation to the effects of you're ball joint spacers, i think it's likely a positive change for several reasons, was just thinking it was worth considering but you're probably more correcting for previous geometry changes...

yup I first lowered the ball joint to raise roll center and reduce body roll but with standard length arms it moved the hubs inwards.
lengthening the arm moves the hub out back to where it originally was.

 

[pollyp]

the LH spherical bearing is sitting a little loose in the housing by about 0.14mm which is no good, so I had to remove the whole arm again

and fill in the 0.14mm gap with some tinfoil & tape. does the job

next, the new springs were sitting just slightly above my target height and the seat rings were at the lowest setting. since the middle lock ring is obsolete I decided to remove it

and now the bottom lock ring is used to lock both the hub mount and the spring seat onto the threaded strut body and drop the height by another 7mm. the arch gap is now exactly where I want it

I wrapped electrical tape around the coilover threads to protect them and to secure the rubber dust boot

the new coilover covers I brought were too loose & baggy considering how close the tyres are spinning nearby, so I wrapped it with duck tape to stop it rubbing and make it even more waterproof ?

 

[pollyp]

time to fit the rear springs

the silly design of bolting the spring adjuster onto the hole of the axle meant that it quickly traps water & crap till they all corrode badly, plus it's really impossible to adjust from the bottom of the axle spring cup.

enough is enough, it's time to remount it upside down so the adjuster sits at the top where it's easy to access and the coil spring sits down on the axle like normal, allowing water to drain out the middle hole too.

old 3kg x 200mm spring VS the new 5kg x 190mm oddly curved spring.
the 3kg spring use 5 coils 9.75mm thick
the 5kg spring use 4 coils 12.25mm thick
both will fully compress down to 49mm

the bottom of the Alu adjuster is once again badly corroded against the steel axle

machined it flat

the mount for the adjuster will be welded to the top of the chassis spring cup so I countersunk the large washer and bolt to be welded flat

added slots in the head for extra penetration

welded & flattened

it'll be welded under the cup like this

 

[pollyp]

mounts welded underneath the spring cups, kinda awquid to access with a bulky MIG gun. the adjuster sits bout 10mm below the original spring cup so it'll have to be adjusted further up

adjuster column screws directly underneath. later I discovered I needed to wind the rings all the way up so the stiffer springs sit correctly so I ended up drilling & tapping the other end, flip the column upside down so I can screw the adjustment rings all the way to the top using the clean threads

sitting like this with the bare spring seat ring locked against the top of the chassis cup it was actually sitting 15mm too low (good to know there's room to adjust further), so I added the 8mm thick locking ring back on and lifted it 15mm higher till all wheels now sit at 100mm rim-arch (-50mm lowered)

whilst working at the rear section I may as well repair this rust hole

had to chop a bigger section out to reach cleaner steel as usual

welded & undersealed

the bottom of the BC coilover strut is open & exposed to collecting all rust & dirt

so I brought a 50mm end plug to close it off and keep the inside clean ?

 

[pollyp]

by inverting the rear springs, the bottom of the spring is slightly smaller than the cup shape on the rear beam axle therefore it slips off-set and can rub along the side, which is not good for the upcoming spring covers either.
to fix this, I thought of making an adapter spigot which inserts inbetween the bottom of the spring and the round drain hole on the axles spring cup as a way of keeping it located center.

my lathe holds a limit of 100mm dia so I ordered a 4" plastic rod on ebay for £13 but found it's actually 105mm and won't fit

so I marked the 3 chuck points and grinded it smaller till it fits in the chuck jaws

machined it down to 100mm to match the spring outer dia

machined the 46mm dia column that'll slot into the axle center hole

chopped into 2 halves

machined the 80mm cup to seat the bottom of the spring and hollowed the center to allow water to drain out

ready to fit

laser levelled my 4 platforms before I align the wheels tomorrow ?

 

[pollyp]

so previously the smaller flat spring would be pushed off-center on the axle cup

fitting the machined collar now keeps it sitting at the center barely clearing the sides

but then I noticed the new springs ain't held captive at full droop ??
was soo frustrated at how to fix this.

lowering the rings to keep the springs captive simply raises the ride height.
I figured the rear dampers are simply drooping too long for the new stiffer shorter springs.

reducing the droop by either raising the dampers top mount, or mounting the dampers lower on the axle, or fitting droop limiters is wayy too much major work.

the next day I figured I could just remove this 15mm lock nut at the bottom of the damper to raise the axle up

by raising the axle up 15mm closer to the shocks body, the tyres will be closer to the arch during full bump compression.
when the rear wheel spacers were on, the tyres would foul the arch and needed a 10mm thicker bump stop.
but by removing the spacers to move the wheels inwards, it clears the arch lip and now I have the original full bump travel ?

springs are now kept securely captive at full droop with the shortened rear damper assembly

brought more custom coilover covers and after a very fiddly task of wrapping it around the springs in the tight space, the rear end is finally all sorted & protected

hopefully I get to align all the wheels tomorrow

 

[pollyp]

placed the car on the level platforms

aligned all 4 wheels

now running -2deg front camber, -0.1deg rear camber, 0.04deg toe-out, and the same -50mm height.
ready to test tomorrow ?

one of my digital scales broke so I ordered another one on ebay and thankfully turns out to be exactly the same PCR-3115 model, so I can soon corner balance this new suspension setup

 

[pollyp]

replaced my old JVC KD-BT11 unit with the Sony MEX-N6001BD, abit nicer with custom lighting and finally have DAB radio. oem speakers really lacking bass though.

filled up and went to test the new setup. AFR still leans-out during high throttle loads due to opening up that manifold so will need retuning.

she corners firmly flat & hard but at high speed I noticed she drifts left slightly and has a sluggish dead-center where I wiggle and her rear end wobbles 1/2sec later.

soon discovered it's cos my left tyres had deflated down to 1.5bar while the right was 3bar.
pumping em all to 3bars made it soo much better, sharper, stable & pointing straight with no more high speed wiggling ?

replaced the old worn ruined red seats with the fresh black seats

that looks soo nice ?

only bad thing is the firm, high and very flat bottom which feels wierd and unsupportive cos I'm used to my red seats where I scooped that bottom section out to match my butt cheeks ?

 

[pollyp]

before I bin one of the broken 300kg digital scale, here's a look at whats inside

a simple screwed together tube frame

the 4 feets sit on these lever strain gauges

4 strain gauges go into a little board with calibration pots and then to the display unit that calculates the 4 average readings

 

[pollyp]

both of the 27yr old electric windows are starting to rattle and if I drop the glass a tiny bit from the top it stops rattling so I guess it's time to overhaul it all.

removing the glass & mechanism was simple enough

discovered the drivers side window motor bracket had badly cracked & bent due to the strain of fully closing the glass window for the past 27yrs with no built-in travel limit switch

the passenger side had a thin cracked swing arm pivot fastener. it was literally a cheap brittle die-cast alloy that I could smash/nibble apart ?

machined two new steel fasteners

welded & grinded flush

also welded the cracked bracket

both mechanisms fixed & greased

removed the rubber window strips to lube with red rubber grease

this bottom edge trim was a pain to remove cos it has this hidden latch inside which you have to nudge open from the underside ??

cleaned the glass

all reassembled and sliding very nice & smoothly ?

gave her a needed monthly wash

went to tonights local meet

there was an annoying rattle in the rear right for awhile and tonight at home I found it was my rear bumper corner mount which has rotted away so that's yet another thing to weld up ??

 

[St0rm91]

oem speakers really lacking bass though.

Dude how have you done all this yet not replaced the speakers?!?

 

[plmval]

Dude how have you done all this yet not replaced the speakers?!?

Because it’s become a life’s work & is working on it replacing or repairing everything bit by bit & simply has not got to every little bit yet?

 

[Huggy444]

45 psi is a pretty high tyre pressure is it not

Do you not find it wearing the middle of the tyre prematurely?

Sent from my CLT-L09 using Micra Sports Club mobile app

 

[plmval]

45 psi is a pretty high tyre pressure is it not

Do you not find it wearing the middle of the tyre prematurely?

Sent from my CLT-L09 using Micra Sports Club mobile app

Quote: “pumping em all to 3bars made it soo much better, sharper, stable & pointing straight with no more high speed wiggling”???

More to the point, 45psi is too high & a Micra, on wide fatties, is likely to spin off the road when cornering in the wet?

An unnecessary risk too far on the roads perhaps?

 

[pollyp]

45 psi is a pretty high tyre pressure is it not

Do you not find it wearing the middle of the tyre prematurely?

Sent from my CLT-L09 using Micra Sports Club mobile app

nope I personally find on my setup & tyres that the higher pressure stiffens up the soft sidewalls & sharpens the steering response compared to running a floppy 2.2bars.

the front tyres of my prev T1R at 3bars actually wear more on the shoulders than the middle and the rear tyres only wear really really slowly and evenly at 3bars.

and as for reduced cornering grip at 3bars on these wider sticky tyres? nope not that I notice or worried about, they still bite just as hard & handles neutral, especially if comparing to a thinner, harder compound, eco budget 13" tyre. it's all relative

 

[pollyp]

since January there's been this annoying rattle at the rear right and tonight I found it was the edge of the bumper cos this screw mount in the wheel arch has rotted away

all the spray coming off the tyres are slowly rotting the arches

chopped the rust out

tried to weld a new piece on, which is really difficult with old thin dirty steel and especially when I can't fit my damn big bulky weld mask inside the tiny wheel well in a small garage. so I couldn't see where I was welding on the back side

I only wanted a quick fix, cos needed it for work tomorrow, and running out of patience the messy weld seems to hold it solid and will do for now. CBA to patch the little hole in the hidden corner so I just smeared it over with tigerseal lol, that'll do ?

grinded & painted

alot more solid than before and no longer rattles ?
it's abit fugly but it does what I wanted and appearance can be cleaned up easily next time

 

[pollyp]

ever since I opened up my stock manifold into a better flowing 2.25" system, I had issues with the tune where the maps from either my janspeed 421 or standard manifold setup kept frustratingly leaning-out under high load ?

but tonight I figured it out.

here's the map for when I ran my janspeed 421 headers. runs fine under light cruise and full WOT but in the middle area during 40-80% throttle it would lean-out dangerously 16-20AFR, console displays warning of reaching "max TP load" which maybe cutting fuel till it leans?

so I lifted the max TP load figures, richened up & smoothed the mid-region of the map, re-enabled my ecu speed sensor input and finally it's worked and running healthy AFR throughout the gears ?

 

[pollyp]

to check the accuracy of all 4 old & new digital scales, I filled a bucket with 1L increments of water and get a reading from each scale

assuming 1L = 1kg I plotted the 4 platform readings.
looks like the blue line of digital scale #1 is reading abit higher than the rest of them. the inaccuracy might be even worse once the cars weight is on it

slightly grinded the reverse gear recently so it's about time to replace the gear oil

 

[pollyp]

time to fit the DAB antenna.
the main antenna sticks to the windscreen and should point vertically for optimum signal strength.
the black copper strip is for grounding directly to the chassis.

sanded a bit of the a-pillar to give the grounding strip good contact

attached the grounding strip first and then the antenna

neatened the cable

nicely hidden trim

wow compared to the old FM radio, this DAB reception is absolutely crystal clear I could even listen to classic FM very loud with zero interference or hissing and there's so many stations available too

 

[l_jonez]

Good work as always!

i personally would have fitted the antenna to the rear screen as that placement would really mess with my OCD when driving

 

[pollyp]

Good work as always!

i personally would have fitted the antenna to the rear screen as that placement would really mess with my OCD when driving

yeah rear screen would be ideal but the cable wasn't long enough and didn't have an extension at hand

 

[pollyp]

testing out all my onboard 1080p/4K/720p cameras

and disappointingly it turns out that these cheap £30 1080p cameras are both fake ?

the camera CCD itself is worse than a potato camera.
the video resolution might say it's 1080p BUT the actual AVI encoding (of a poor quality footage) is soo inefficient & bad, that the stuttering 10-15fps and insanely huge file size makes it completely useless ??
plus the battery dies after just 5min

what a waste

 

[pollyp]

my wheels & steering has been shaking badly ever since that local garage fitted my new Falken tyres. so tday I took it down to kwik fit near workplace instead to have em rebalanced. turns out that both front wheels were actually kinda off-round / buckled? you can see the rim go up/down 1mm as the wheel spins ? can't remember if both these wheels ever hit a bump hard enough to throw them off-round.

the guy swapped the wobbly fronts wheels to the back.
the back wheels were alot straighter so they're fitted to the front end.

now she doesn't shake anymore on the motorway ?

 

[pollyp]

fitted the onboard cameras and the new stereo microphone & voice recorder strapped to the passenger seat and went for a blast ??

oh my ? she sounds nice when I open the taps and she corners really hard & stable.
only annoying thing is that specific stereo microphone occasionally picking up some GSM phone signal interference from my GPS tracker. the other mono mic I tried worked fine.



so from months of work removing the heavy sunroof, welding the sills, correcting her suspension geometry, fitting stiffer springs and fresh sticky Falken tyres she did 0-60 in 9.20secs even with a full tank of fuel
last year before doing all this work and on old T1Rs she did 10.05sec.
a big improvement

 

[pollyp]

levelling the digital platform scales to corner balance the new suspension

oh christ it took all friggin day to lift the car onto the high platforms with a short trolley jack in my small garage,
trying to adjust the springs many many times to equalise the cross weight but it didn't go well,
each adjustment just made it worse or my scales were failing or I've forgotton to disconnect the sway bars ?
losing my patience with a headache, this was the best I could do for tday.

even with a full 40L / 40kg tank of fuel, she's alot lighter tday at 885kg without a sunroof or heavy turbo compared to her old 920kg turbo setup

whilst everything in the world is shut down with the virus, I had a nice quiet relaxing blast in the night time ?

 

[pollyp]

So tonight I discovered the expensive sony stereo mic I brought was actually not shielded and suffered from interference off my GSM-cellular GPS tracker.
My modern smartphone didn't affect the mic as it uses a different signal.

reading about RFI/EMI shielding, I roughly wrapped some tin-foil along the cable and Yey it stopped the interference ?
silly how an ££ mic didn't include shielding. so I'll be wrapping it in aluminium tape tomorrow

 

[pollyp]

wrapped this aluminium foil shield along the whole cable

it was still picking up the signal from the exposed phono jack so I enclosed the recorder in a glasses case filled with more tin-foil and it's blocked most of the GSM signal.
some faint interference beeping still leaks through at certain angles but it'll be drowned out by the louder audio sound

went for a blast in the country roads during this messy outbreak situation and ooh she sounds & feels nice, responsive and nippy. had abit of a poopy moment @ 3:00
microphone captures the throaty induction & exhaust sound quite clear and without any interference

 

[pollyp]

brought these lovely bling 51mm long red Alu wheel nuts for £25 to cover the extended studs after I removed the spacers

tried wrapping in mask tape to protect against the steel socket but its a pain to remove so I just did the rest as normal, don't care about the shine, as long as it just covers the studs

they look lovely ?

was pointed out on FB bout the dangers of these aluminium nuts.
I think for normal light use they're ok cos they have full thread engagement with the longer studs and I could over-torque a spare nut with no sign of that shearing/stripping feeling.

but a m8 referred me on ebay bout some Steel versions of these red long nuts so I ordered that too ?
hope royal mail still delivers during this UK lockdown crisis

 

[pollyp]

with everything closed and hugely reduced pollution, it was oddly such a gorgeous warm calm wednesday ?

since this spare rusty MIG was taking up space in the small garage, I stripped & salvaged all the useful bits off it and make room for a TIG welder I'm thinking of getting

the wire feeder has lots of gears

 

[pollyp]

The long red steel nuts arrived, it even comes with an adapter socket

these steel nuts have a deeper red look and a well engineered quality. the chunky Alu nuts just look basic & cheap in comparison.
also found the Alu nuts had a 62deg taper so it only contacts the wheel at the outer edge and could loosen.
the steel nuts have an accurate 60deg taper matching the wheels which spreads the load across the entire face and less likely to loosen.

these new nuts look more sophisticated & sleek ?

 

[pollyp]

tday was the last day at work at the motorfactors until further notice, possibly 2-3wks. I believe I'll be paid 80% wage. worrying times as the entire world shuts down ?

brimmed her at Shell. I've never seen fuel prices suddenly drop at £1.02 since 2009! ?

dunno if I really fully brimmed her compared to the last fill up, but after aligning her wheels straight, reduced weight down to 880kg, pumped tyres to 3bars, tuned map to mostly run close to 14afr and trying to drive economically to work this week, she somehow did 48mpg!?
I don't usually reach that unless I crawl 57mph behind lorries on the motorway non-stop ?

forgot to mention the other day regards to tuning my standalone Omex.
I was hoping to find a local tuner who could remap the Omex ecu once I wired it in and reconstructed a new turbo setup.

I was talking to a tuner down the street from my workplace who afew m8s recommended but unfortunately he said he wouldn't like to touch the Omex because he's had bad experience with em, they're a PITA to tune and really primitive compared to modern alternatives. saying keeping with nistune would be slightly better but he'd prefer a Link's ecu.
he roughly quoted it'd be at least £400 if it was already running ok with Omex so he doesn't have to waste time fault finding issues and get on with tuning it.
to install, diagnose, set up & tune the omex from stratch would obviously hike the cost up exponentially. he didn't seem eager tbh, preferring to tune the classic desireable race cars he's used to featuring Links ecu. sounds kinda biased.
so yeah, that's all my plans with Omex out the window for now ?

meanwhile as I begin the 3wks isolation, it's a good time to work on kassandra's other major issues on my to-do list such as more rust repairs underneath and more suspension refining

 

[Daz1985]

£400 jees that’s a take it elsewhere price if ever I heard one lol

 

[pollyp]

£400 jees that’s a take it elsewhere price if ever I heard one lol

yup that's pretty much a rip off

 

[plmval]

£400 jees that’s a take it elsewhere price if ever I heard one lol

Always look on the bright side of life?

£400 tuning would triple the value of a 28 year old K11!

When you’re chewing on life’s gristle, give a whistle.

Reference;