Most liked posts in thread: The Phoenix - The GP Roadster Project

Today's progress: got started on the front suspension.

Dropped the front subframe. Yeah, lift and tall transmission jack come in handy. Dropped the whole thing intact in less than 10 minutes. 10 bolts + 6 nuts.


Pulled it out and stripped everything off it. Cleaned up and treated some rust.


Pressed out my 100k mile old Powerflex purple bushings and pressed new Powerflex black bushings into the LCA brackets.

Installed new lower control arms (wishbones), the bushings, and Hotchkis sway bar.
Decided I needed new ball joints. Didn't find any locally, so ordered a set. Will be delayed for a few days until they get here.

Pulled off the steering rack to save as a spare. Installed my old steering rack with pump and reservoir still attached. Used new Powerflex purple rack bushing. Installed two new tie rods.


Maneuvered the subframe back into position, raised it, and popped in 10 bolts. Done. That jack is AWESOME.

 

I expect the motor to be in, within the next week or so.

 

Lift should help. Not as good as a proper suspension rack, I'll have to drop it and roll it between adjustments. But once I get a feel (and notes) for "x amount of adjustment to y yields z change" it should be pretty straightforward. Once I know that "1/2 turn of camber link plus 1/4 turn of toe link yields x amount of camber increase with no change in toe" (or something like that) then it's money.

Caster will be fire and forget. Just have to get it right once, and leave it alone.
Front toe is just twisting tie rods... x turns per 1/16", etc.

The place that has been doing my alignments used to be GREAT. Then less experienced guy started doing the alignment work, and after that they never quite did exactly what I asked for (and wrote down for them). Then new owner banished customers from the shop floor. RIP, I won't use anyone who won't let me watch.

 

That's the Borg assimilator. Adds 2 million HP.

 

It's been one of the two things I've been terrified to mess with (with engine building). It was an unjust fear. It's really no big deal, if you understand how the suspension works, you have a few tools, and are patient enough to work through it.

Soon I'll understand alignment on this car much better than any shop ever would. I'll understand exactly how much of what adjustments generates a given amount of change. Then it will be dead simple and fast. Just takes a little trial and error to get there.

But I started with a car radically out of alignment yesterday. And, by my second drive, it drove as well as my old car ever did with a professional alignment. :cornut:

 

I'll be at VIR Feb 27-28, Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don't Rise.

So I installed these:


Drilled out the center pin on the old rattling plastic OEM points, and pulled them off.
Mounted the new ones...
Front:


Rear:


PERFECT. So much easier to get on the lift, with no danger to the skirts.



Highly recommended mod, if you have aero or GP skirts.

Also fixed the passenger side hood latch and cable, so everything latches like it should now. And red-dipped my driver's side latch handle, and oil dipstick. No more yellow in the engine bay, except for the oil fill cap label.

Adjusted my front and rear camber, now that I have the caster plates installed. I'm going to try running -1.25 F / -1.0 R static camber. With the caster set to +7degrees, I get added dynamic camber when I turn in. Measures -1.65deg on outside wheel, with steering wheel turned 1/4 turn, and -2.0deg with 1/2 turn of steering. I might bump front camber up a bit more, but want to see how little I can get away with.

 

Then it worked!

 

The worst part, honestly, was having the car out of commission during a few REALLY nice days. It was killing me not to drive it.

 

Soft top is staying. :cornut:

But I think it will all blend like a BlendTec when it's done. May have to try a couple of prototypes before I settle on the best approach. We have a good place here in Raleigh that does canvas work, tonneau covers, convertible tops, interiors, etc. I'm betting we'll figure it out.

I'm thinking the color is going to match the existing soft top.

Also going to do a removable partition between the boot area and the back seat area, same material.

And am having the OEM roll bar refabricated to make a straight-across crossbar for attaching all this stuff. And to restore the pivots for the rear shelf, etc.

May be a few more weeks before I have all that worked out.

 

Step 9 - Finishing the Rear Seat Delete

I thought about lots of different approaches to the RSD. Originally I was going to box it in, making a little storage under a flat platform/lid. Then I looked at some old pics of how k-huevo just carpeted his, and liked it. The primary use for this area will be a place to carry my donut spare (when on the street far from home, etc.). I figured I could do a little variation of Keith's approach and accomplish that, and look good, and provide a little more space for stowage when needed.

I found some dark blue Ozite automotive carpet at yourautotrim.com. This stuff is very similar to the texture of the carpet in the MINI, and stretches to "mold" to contours as needed. Their "dark blue" was a bit brighter than the OEM dark blue carpet, but it's close enough and the hue coordinates with other things in the car, as long as you don't have a visible break from one carpet to the other.



The carpet isn't dirty in this pic... it's just the way the flash makes it look in the areas where it's a bit more compressed.



Easiest to do all this with the front seats and all the rear interior trim removed. I'm good at that by now. :wink:

First I cut out the two center LATCH loops with a cut-off wheel. I also cut down the protruding studs for the fuel pump access panels. I'll still be able to get into them when needed, it will just be a bit more of a pain to get the nuts back on. I left the outside latch loops, and the front loops that the seat snapped onto, for use as tie-down points. I removed all the seat and seat belt attachment bolts, and taped over the holes.

Starting at the end of the OEM carpet under what was the back seat, I cut and installed a continuous run of carpet padding I had in the attic. I added an extra layer underneath in the seat pans to fill them in a bit. Taped this down at the front and rear, then carefully ran and cut the Ozite. Started at the bottom of the vertical wall of the rear footwell, cutting around the exhaust hump but fitting under all the trim. So there's a clean break here between the old and new carpet, but you don't see it because it's behind the seats.

This eliminated the OEM trim piece across the "beam" between the rear wheels, now it's just wrapped with the carpet. Rear edge goes under the boot panel and rubber liner. All other edges go under the side panel trim. Nice and clean.

I carefully slit the Ozite and carpet pad around the tie-down points. Looks good and works well.



I have a better OEM MINI cargo net coming to use here, but here's a cheap one in place for now. No, I'm not relying on the cargo net to hold the spare. There's another steel loop welded under the seat, centered in front of the center seat belt buckle assembly. This happens to be in the perfect place to use for a spare wheel tie-down point. While I was cutting with my cut-off wheel, I removed the small vertical "plate" blocking the front side of this loop. I slit the carpet for this and am using a standard spin-on spare tire rod to hold it (will be hidden inside the spare tire bag). Still need to thread the rod a bit further down and cut to length.



Got it threaded and cut - here it is installed, without the cover on the tire. I'm washing the cover now, when it's done I'll strategically place a hole on the bottom side for the rod. Bonus: the jack bag fits within the underside of the spare. So both will be clamped down and stowed inside the spare bag.



Oh yeah, and no more porcupine zip ties on the roll bar padding.

 

Went for a short run and gassed up today... looked at the computer and it said I've averaged 16.3mpg since the last time I reset it. I can't imagine why. :devil:

Economy car my azz.

 

30 mph. Same as everyone else. :devil: