Well, if Scott can write about working on the car this
weekend, so can I. Although mine was only two decades
of automotive design, and I can sum up the Audi brake
work in one sentence "buy only genuine Audi parts".
Redcar progress; After almost a month with it's tail in
the air, I decided to finish up the rearend work this
weekend & get it off the jackstands. Left to do was put
the brakes back on, re-stack the springs to return it
to the original ride height, & fit the Panhard bar.
Brakes; the original problem was for some reason the
wheel cylinder was coming in contact with the hub as it
rotated, so I devised a two-part fix; First, I ground a
flat on the side of the wheel cylinder that hit the hub
& ground down the head of the wheel studs that hit the
cylinder. Next I pulled the roll pin that locates the
cylinder out of the back of the cylinder, & tapped that
hole 10-32. Then once the cylinder was back on the
mounting plate I ran a 3/16" long button head allen
screw into this, pulling the wheel cylinder up tight.
As a result I now had about 1/8" clearance between the
two units. I have seen this happen on several
late-model Spridget rearends, the wheel cylinder
retaining clip becomes & allows the cylinder to move
when braking. Unfortunately it moves into the hub.
Problem no more.
Springs; A previous owner had re-stacked the 1/4
elliptics on my car, moving a few of the top leaves to
the bottom. This gave it a lowered stance & less
springing rate, and a result the car sat more evenly
(stock Bugeyes having the characteristic tail-up
stance), but it would bottom out easily. Hence before I
fitted the Panhard I wanted the ride height & spring
rate to be where I wanted.
As difficult as it sounds, re-stacking the
springs is dead simple. Four bolts hold the sing to
the car, and one holds the spring to the rearend, and
Voila ! it pops right out. One bolt hold the leaves
together, so it's a very simple matter to pull that out
& re-stack them in a different order, which gives a
different spring rate & thus ride height. I put mine
back stock to get a good point of reference in case I
wanted something softer in the future. With these out I
also took the time to thoroughly clean out the spring
boxes, spring & all hardware, lubing it all w/WD-40.
All back together it sits a bit higher, but is firmer &
doesn't squeak either.
Panhard: Following the WC "instructions" I dropped the
gas tank & installed the bracket using on of the tank
mounting bolts. Problem # 1; the bracket required
another hole where on of the tank mounting bolts hit it
on the side. Otherwise it was a tight, but good fit. So
with the bracket being roughly in position I decided to
fit the bar itself & see how it looked. Problems #2 &
3; the bar came in full contact with the parking brake
mechanism, and the bar was about 2" too long for the
car, the end of the bar nearly coming in contact with
the backing plate. I took the whole thing off &
measured the bar length with the idea I would call WC
today to see if I got the right bar.
One phone call later; apparently I got the right
bar but the wrong mount, so the Panhard installation
will have to wait a bit. Good thing I'm not in a hurry.
La Carrera is still unscheduled .....
cheers-
dstone@sc9.intel.com
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