Aurora 4.0l / Izuzu 5 speed swap into 88 coupe (Page 77/102)
fieroguru JUN 09, 08:04 AM

quote
Originally posted by cptsnoopy:

I hope this is what you're looking for...




Those are perfect! Thanks!

I am playing around with designing my own dropped spindles for the 88 and curious how they handled the upper ball joint area as it ends up going some what behind the wheel bearing. Still torn on the bearing to use... I could design them to keep the wheel flange with the right offset with the rear wheel bearing, then clock the bolt pattern on the upright to use the 88 front bearing with a supplied spacer... go with a larger overall bearing in the 115 or 4 1/2 or 4 3/4 pattern, however the larger the bearing is, the more the upper ball joint is behind it.
cptsnoopy JUN 17, 02:27 PM
Well, I got the front end apart, swapped in the black Prothane Poly Bushings with the special grease squishing out everywhere... I also replaced the sway-bar bushings with the black poly too. The upper and lower Ball Joints were replaced with Rodney's stock replacements. I picked up Rodney's zero lash end links for the front sway-bar and after I get the knuckle situation sorted out I'll be installing those too. The HT knuckles look gorgeous out of the box but this particular set has a weird anomaly, the tie-rod tapers are upside down. Either these are for a different but similar type of car or they just got welded on with the wide part of the taper on top and the skinny part on the bottom. I'll get with Richard at HT and see if he won't swap me for a pair that are in the correct orientation. So for now, I'll be putting the stock knuckles back on the car and move it out of the way while I wait for shipping to take place...

Charlie
cptsnoopy JUN 18, 06:19 PM
The drop spindles are on their way back to HT and they have been very nice and apologetic about the mix up. If all goes well They should be mounted in a week or two and all the front end nutz and boltz torqued to their correct values.

Charlie
Bloozberry JUN 18, 06:55 PM
It's nice to see a company that takes ownership in the quality of its products when things go wrong.
qwikgta JUN 21, 09:20 PM

quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:

It's nice to see a company that takes ownership in the quality of its products when things go wrong.



yea, except things "go wrong" with them a lot. I ordered a bunch of parts from them and i'm stll "working it out" with Richard. I wish their quality control was better. I sure hope my dropped spindles are correct. I'll break them out of the box tomorrow and check.

I ordered the tubular UCA/LCA w/ QA1 coilover and the dropped spindles, and 13" brake kit. Mine was also PC in the silver. Love the pics of the assembled front end.

Rob

[This message has been edited by qwikgta (edited 06-21-2012).]

cptsnoopy JUN 22, 01:33 AM
Richard knew what I was talking about when I was describing the issues I had and I feel confident that the replacements will work fine. They should arrive on Wednesday so it wont be long before I can try them out.

Charlie
qwikgta JUN 22, 11:16 AM
HOLY CRAP!!!!!! I think mine are the same as yours. when I put mine in the same position as you show yours, the hole is larger on top, and smaller on the bottom, and this is wrong...... right?

SOB, now I have to have them fix this too. Control Arms, Brake rotors, missing parts and now this. NOT HAPPY.

So glad I saw this post, and checked before I took the front end apart.

Rob
cptsnoopy JUN 23, 01:41 AM

quote
Originally posted by qwikgta:

HOLY CRAP!!!!!! I think mine are the same as yours. when I put mine in the same position as you show yours, the hole is larger on top, and smaller on the bottom, and this is wrong...... right?

SOB, now I have to have them fix this too. Control Arms, Brake rotors, missing parts and now this. NOT HAPPY.

So glad I saw this post, and checked before I took the front end apart.

Rob

I'm sorry Rob but yes that's incorrect and you'll need to have them replaced...

Charlie
qwikgta JUN 23, 11:05 PM
Yea, confirmed it today. Took them over to a buddy who has a set and he got his set last year. They are the same except that the steering ball joint taper's are 180 out from each other. I will send Richard some pics on Monday and see how long it will take to get the new ones.

Rob
cptsnoopy JUL 01, 09:26 PM
Richard at HT was very helpful and sent the replacement drop spindles out the same day as my returns showed up at his shop. The replacements looked great and there was only one small issue that was easily remedied with getting the passenger side tie-rod tapered stud secured. As mentioned earlier I purchased Rodney's "Zero Lash sway-bar end links" (a thing of beauty they are...) and once I had them mounted I found several clearance issues. Because Rodney's end links are designed for stock steering knuckles and not for HT's drop spindles they were too short by just over an inch. Luckily I figured this out before installing the wheels. At full extension and with the end links providing 5" of separation between the LCA and the swing arm, the steering arm of the HT knuckle is at the same height as the ball joint of the zero lash end link. This interference causes a loss of just over a 1/4 turn of steering wheel rotation from the normal stop. Another issue was that the sway-bar was low enough to interfere with the tie-rod (again with the suspension in full extension) also causing less turn radius. By extending the zero lash end links by 1 and 3/16" both issues will no longer be a problem. There will likely still be a very minor contact of the knuckle steering arm and the rod of the end link just as the wheel is turned to its limit. With the sway-bar raised it will no longer come into contact with the tie-rod... I took both front springs out and spent about an hour running the suspension up and down checking for other possible issues but found none. I also took the time to relocate the brake line clamps on the UCA to reduce stresses. Using the dog-bone shaped 12" brake adapters with the HT drop spindles takes every mm of available stock flexible brake line, especially on the passenger side. Using the offset 12" brake adapters like Blooz did on his car raises the caliper and I suspect allows using the stock brake line clamp position on the UCA.

Charlie


HT 1.5" drop spindle installed (note that the sway-bar end links are not installed yet...)


Picture after I removed the springs and was checking for any other interference.

[This message has been edited by cptsnoopy (edited 07-01-2012).]