Episode 18

Back in the air.

Way back in 2003 when I had LEDA convert the struts to coilover, I replaced the upper strut mounts with stock replacements, as that was all I could find at the time. Camber and caster remained fixed, and for whatever reason the camber on the left front corner was a bit more negative than the right front. On events, you'd have to stiffen the bump on the right front to try and compensate, but it was never an ideal solution. Turn in and grip was great on right handers, and less great on lefts. Turns out KMAC out of Australia makes an ingenious swiveling camber plate / strut mount setup that allows for camber and caster adjustment.

Here it is ...

Comparison: The stock part on the right uses a bearing fused into a rubber mount to take shock. When they wear, they clunk and bang over bumps. The KMAC plates on the left feature a spherical bearing mounted in the plates.

First step was to fabricate a tool to allow the alan-key strut shaft to be held in place while removing the top nut. I simply welded some bar stock to a socket. Which worked well, except for one small hitch. The bearing came apart and the lower half of the bearig race stuck on the strut shaft.

Improvisation: I carefully ground notches into the bearing race, and used a precariously positioned puller to remove the bearing. One side went pretty smoothly, and the other took about 4-hours of fiddling grinding and cursing. In the end, I won and didn't damage the strut shaft.

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Strut mount out, and new plate test fit.

Just a shot to show the good condition of the body where the struts mount.

Of course the tool I made to loosen the strut shaft interfered with the body when trying to tighten the new camber plates, so I cut it apart and re-welded it at an angle that (barely) gave it enough clearance.

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Tightened.

Roughly aligned, and test driven. It's a huge improvement. The added camber on the right side fixed the left hand turn-in issues, and apparently the stock style mounts were wearing, as the front suspension lost a few rattles over bumps and feels tight again.

Onward, to Episode 19 - More Interior Work

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