Honeysuckle 2-door toledo - NBP

[jackharper]

any thoughts on the sprintspeed adjustable bars? seems a good idea to make it adjustable, not sure if it's overkill on a road car though?

[GlenM]

any thoughts on the sprintspeed adjustable bars? seems a good idea to make it adjustable, not sure if it's overkill on a road car though?

Have a chat with Rob at Sprintspeed. He will give you honest advice and won't try and sell you something that you don't need.

[sprint95m]

any tips for fitting the upper wishbone bushes? have managed to get 2 in so far, but feel like i'm bending the bushes too much as they aren't going in easily. They're very long and thin, with others i've just been able to push them in with a socket in a vice, these aren't playing ball...

Threaded bar and heavy duty washers,
some lubricant on the bush helps….


Ian

[jackharper]

any tips for fitting the upper wishbone bushes? have managed to get 2 in so far, but feel like i'm bending the bushes too much as they aren't going in easily. They're very long and thin, with others i've just been able to push them in with a socket in a vice, these aren't playing ball...

Threaded bar and heavy duty washers,
some lubricant on the bush helps….


Ian

Cheers - had tried the threaded bar with washers but even still they were warping! Will carry on going with some fairy liquid round them...

[jackharper]

Very brief update as the car is back together for now. I decided to not do the "upper" half of the front suspension as the upper ball joints were fine and the wishbone bushes, although I have new ones to go on, seemed OK for now. Perhaps this is lazy, but I just want to try out the new ball joints and bushes on the lower half and see if they make much of a difference. I think they will judging by the state of the removed ball joints....

I decided on going for some sprintspeed adjustable tie bars though currently they are set to be the same length as standard tie bars - can adjust when I track the car.

Also replaced the track rod ends as the previous ones were a bit notchy feeling.



I plan on putting the radiator back on and going for a drive now. I think the car may need tracking after all this, though I doubt changing the wishbone bushes will change much if they aren't perished already, so hopefully I can just track the car now then fit the UWBs at a later date without any change in the tracking. May do the subframe bushes at the same time and just lower the whole lot a bit to make things easier. For now I just want to drive the car!

[jackharper]

OK - have been out for a drive since. The car feels better in terms of suspension, though steering is still somewhat vague especially in the centre. I haven't tracked the car yet so maybe that'll help, but it looks roughly right (as before) by eye. I did mark on the track rods when replacing the ends so it should be pretty much the same.

At this point the next thing i'm going to try is the bulkhead bush. I can move the column up and down slightly so think it'll be worth doing. Have purchased a superflex item to go in, and i've heard it's not too bad of a job for the flat dash models.

In other news the ECU is working well and controlling the fan nicely, as well as reading RPMs now without any sync loss!

[jackharper]

Not much of an update technically - put some 165/80/13s on the sprint wheels. car feels much better to drive now.

unfortunately when putting the wheels back on i managed to snap a stud on the rear hub! it came off in the nut, but i managed to get it out by drilling then using one an easy-out.




drove it through with some washers and a spanner bigger than the thread - the whole thing isn't threaded, so using a steel wheel nut only gets you so far.




Also this month I got married to my wife(!) and used the Tolly as our wedding car - It behaved well and looked the part too I think. Here it is on the big day next to my Dad's Marina.






And us - sorry about my ugly mug


Brilliant day. Can't wait to use this car a bit more before the end of the year. There are a few niggles to sort out, but as a whole it drives quite nicely now.