Tinkering, Part 4

We got a late start and a late finish last night. My candidate for Governor had long since resigned by the time we called it quits. What a wus!!

First order of business was getting more kerosene for the heater. While Jeff got fuel, I mended a bad connector on the starter harness and reattached the starter. I also cleaned up and put away tools left out from our last session. I hate having tools all over the place.

By the time Jeff returned with kerosene and Doritos, the place was pretty much squared away. We attached the heater hose ducts to the rear shroud, removed to obtain wrench clearance to get at the bell housing bolts.

Then it was time to wheel the motor under the car. Having had problems with clearance at the back of the motor we tried installing it with the front of the car a little lower. This did not seem to help much. As Jeff said, "It seems like this motor gets a little longer every time we put it in." What finally worked was to tip the motor so that the back went in first. Once that was in place, we raised the transaxle and bolted it up.

Engine secured, we proceeded to reconnect the throttle linkage, shifter, clutch rod (this had to be disconnected later to obtain clearance for the right strut rod), fuel line, battery cable at the starter, and the heater hoses.

The u-joints went in much more easily this time. We used a long bar clamp to draw the wheel in toward the transaxle and they went together without a hitch, and no dropped caps.

Then came the inner strut rod brackets.

These are miserable, nasty, contrary, ornery bits of metal. We had some difficulty getting them bolted up last time, but that was nothing compared to last night.

The problem is, of course, that the course the torque arm describes through space is not linear, but is an arc. Thus, when the suspension is fully extended, the strut rod is twisting the bracket clockwise from the transaxle at the left side of the differential, and counter-clockwise at the right side. To counteract this, you can raise the wheel with a jack but even so, the bracket does not quite line up. It's pretty easy to get three of the four bolts, but the fourth is a real bite.

We tried:

and tried:

And tried.

Eventually, the following things seemed to work. (1) Have one person working the jack and another at getting the bolts started. (2) Get the top bolts in first. (3) Once the top bolts are in place, make sure that the inner strut rod bolts (the big ones) are tight because that seems to help take some of the flex out of the bracket. (4) The "sweet spot" on raising and lowering the wheel is not full compression of the suspension, but somewhere slightly short of there.

One suggestion I received earlier regarding this problem was to remove the transmission mount bolts and lower the transaxle. This might work, but I did not want to do this, because I was afraid that even if it worked, we would end up with a similar set of problems when it came time to reinstall the transmission mount bolts.

By 1:30 a.m. the brackets were attached and we were exhausted. Tonight the plan is to get the rear suspension components torqued, address the back-up switch, get the shroud to body seal in place, get all the topside connections reestablished, and put her back on the ground.