Up to the front ... Continued

I have still been thinking about how stiff the suspension is. I hadn't really got any helpful replies from the Cobra Club forum so I decided to build up the other side. I made sure that everything that should be greased was greased and assembled as before - the result was pretty much the same. I had improved things slightly by adding another camber shim. The original donor parts had 3 shims each 1.6mm thick - total 4.8mm. For some reason I had but back four new ones each 1.0mm thick. This results in the upper wishbone arms being 0.8mm closer together and therefore distorting the bushes slightly. So I added another one which makes things 0.2mm over size - much closer. (4 to the front 1 to the back).

I am now two short for the other side so I need to order some more!

I had therefore concluded that things should be this stiff - I'll just have to slacken the nuts to check the bump steer - more on that later.

Having checked the camber of the off side hub the next thing was to check the castor. This is why I haven't fitted the front callipers yet. The hub carrier has two lugs where the brake calliper fits (see below)

These lugs have a machined flat on them so that the two flats represent a line parallel to the steering axis. So measuring the inclination of the these lugs will give the amount of castor. I did this using a homemade template I knocked up on Autocad:You can see that the off side castor is exactly 5 degrees (measure with the top wishbone horizontal). This should be OK but can only be confirmed with a test drive - so that'll have to wait then!

If this may be of any use then click on the image below for a copy - print it out and stick it on a piece of MDF and used some black cotton with a plumb bob.

So I need to order a couple more shims before I can complete the near side and check the set up there.

It's starting to look like a car now (if you squint really hard!)