Have you ever had one of those days where nothing went right? That's what this
past weekend was like for me. My plan was to install rear bushings in the Spit,
make a new carpet set, and replace the rear tranny mounts. Should have been
able to do it in a day easy. That's not the way things worked out.
Saturday was an *incredible* day. Unfortunately I had been out pretty late the
night before, and didn't get up until after noon, so I missed half of it. I
went down to a friend's house, and we started looking at the rear suspension of
the Spit. Things were really goofy, the first thing we noticed was that the
spring was able to move forward and back by a couple of inches on the right
side. This led to speculation that perhaps the spring was broken. But there
were other things wrong too. The trailing arms had a lot of play in them, and
the U-joints seemed fine. Pretty much the inverse of what you would expect to
find. The other strange thing was that the differential could move on its rear
mounts by about 1/4", also causing play in the rear suspension.
The first attempt to fix all this was to try to put washers into the rear
differential mounts as shims. This proved impossible. Alright, time to get
serious here: We removed the leaf spring (turned out to be fine), and took
out the differential. The differential turned a little roughly, but nothing
terrible, so at least there was one part that wasn't totally shot. At least
we did find the reason for the movement of the differential on its mounts: it
mounts with rubber bushings with metal inserts. The insert is longer than the
rubber, and on one of these there was a large rubber washer, taking up the
space between the differential flange and the metal insert. I was obviously
missing the other 3, the cause of that problem.
By this time it was pretty dark, and we were pretty frustrated, not having
found any real good reason for the car to vibrate at speed. In a final attempt
to find the problem, my friend went outside and looked at the Spit again, and
came back laughing. It turns out the U-joints weren't bad because they were
loose, they were seized. This explained everything -- the fact the car felt
incredibly unstable on bumps, the play all over the place in the rear
suspension, everything.
Not having new U-joints to put into the car, we were forced to spend the first
part of Sunday searching through my friends large cache of used Spit parts for
a pair of halfshafts with good U-joints on them. We came up with a good pair,
a better differential than mine, and one replacement trailing arm (remember the
bushings on both sides are shot). And also another leaf spring. So I went and
fabricated new rubber washers for this diff. mount, put in the diff, put in the
other leaf spring, bolted up the good used halfshafts, had all kinds of problems
getting the handbrake stuff to work out, hooked up rear brakes, bled them,
bolted the wheels on (even had trouble with that! I'm telling you, not a good
day), all in record time because I had a previous obligation. I'm about ready
to put the car on the ground, running a half hour late when I realize that I
forgot to bolt the exhuast on! I ended up borrowing one of my friend's cars,
and had to come back later (after dark) to finish the job. Everything done,
I drive the car some, and it feels better, but not perfect. Quick inspection
reveals that the brakes need adjustment (rectified on the spot), and that the
trailing arm with the bad bushing is causing play in the right rear suspension.
OK, I know what to fix now.
Having determined that, I started driving the car home. Whenever I made a left
turn, there was a quiet floppa floppa floppa sound from the left side, in time
to the turning of the wheels. I run back to my friends house and he tells me
(with real regret) that he noticed the sound when he tried the car, and didn't
have the heart to tell me that it sounds like a bad (loose) U-joint. OK, I
know that I have to replace a U-joint next weekend in addition to the bushing.
If that wasn't bad enough, I noticed that the flange that the right wheel
bolts to isn't perfectly flat (you can rock the brake drum on it), so I'll
have to replace that next weekend also. Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh!
Next weekend I'll have to take apart almost everything I put together this
weekend. Blech.
Happy British Motoring Oxymoron
- Joe
(I actually love british cars, and thrive on adversity. Its just that part
of the love is the ability to complain about them every once in a while.
And as adversity goes, this is about a 3.)
|