Blooze Own: An F355 Six Speed N* Build Thread (Page 83/126)
Bloozberry OCT 05, 09:47 PM
Thanks Paul for your input. This is only the first stage of the mount fabrication... just locating the pivot point. The "tower" will need braces for fore and aft, and for inboard/outboard stabilization as you mentioned. The fore and aft braces will be simple I'll just run some small diameter tubing in line with, and under the shock and spring to connect the top of the "tower" to some additional braces I'm planning on the front firewall.

The transverse bracing is a bit trickier to package, so I'm still brainstorming different solutions. I'm not entirely sure I understand your proposal though.
Will OCT 06, 05:19 PM
Don't mount that pivot in single shear. I strongly suggest coming down from the upper frame rail with another tower to the outer face of the bell crank.
Bloozberry OCT 06, 08:18 PM
Thanks Will... I'm trying to come up with a solution for that as well but it's not as simple as it appears. Dropping another beam from the upper frame rail to the outboard side of the bell crank impedes the ability to either slide a pivot shaft in place and/or place a nut at the end of, say a welded pivot shaft, to pre-load the bearings. Triangulating an upper beam that drops down from the upper rail would also present a challenge.

I understand the need for the pivot shaft to be in double shear, it removes the bending forces from the shaft and it also serves as a fail-safe mechanism should the bearing come apart. I've got some so-so ideas to accomplish this but nothing strikes me as being ideal yet. I've just got to keep mocking up different configurations until I find something that works. I've been racking my brain for a couple days and I'm out of ideas at the moment so I'm going to give it a rest and start modifying the passenger side while the ideas stew.

[This message has been edited by Bloozberry (edited 10-06-2013).]

dhobbs84sc OCT 08, 10:14 PM
YEARS later... I come in for an update (when to the corvette side... currently building a 406cid) and its still as detailed and amazing as before(also this and fieroguru are the only reasons(extremely happy to see the forum is still doing awesome) I check in). im extremely impressed. Ill buy ;D

[This message has been edited by dhobbs84sc (edited 10-08-2013).]

Bloozberry OCT 14, 08:59 PM
Hey dhobbs, nice to hear from you. Thanks for the kind words. I'm sure whatever you're doing on the Corvette will be equally impressive.

For this update, I haven't got a lot to show except that I've completed the rear upper and lower link mounts and mocked up the suspension on the passenger side. I would have thought it would go a bit faster given my experience on the driver's side, but it didn't. Every mounting point still needed to be measured in relation to several reference points to locate it accurately, and then I found that the various templates I made for the driver's side wouldn't work on the passenger side. A combination of the factory manufacturing process, and the 3" frame stretch (done by the previous owner) created enough error that I needed to fabricate all new link mounts on the passenger side frame to account for the deviations. Nothing big, but a few millimeters here and there make a difference! Here's the mocked up passenger suspension... note that the forward trailing link mount isn't made yet, nor is the shock pushrod connected to anything either:



And now for a quick break from suspension-talk. I knew early on that I wanted to do something different than the stock Ferrari pop-up headlights since I've always found the reliability of these systems a bit hit and miss. None of the Fiero motors are getting any younger, and neither are pop-up motors from other cars for that matter too. Throw in the need to engineer new linkages and create new mounts that are stiff enough not to vibrate or jimmy on our bad Nova Scotia roads, and I just figured there had to be an easier and better looking solution.

I've been hunting on and off now for nearly two years trying to settle on a headlight assembly that would fit in the space I have, follow the contour of the fender, have a glass lens, look more modern preferably with a nice looking projector, but not look too froggy-like either. Lastly, I didn't want to break the bank buying some $800 apiece exotic car lights. It was a tall order and that's why it took so long for me to get the courage to order some up without knowing if they'd fit or look any good. They're not a radical choice by any means since lots of people have used these on Diablo kits and the like, but I think they will make a nice departure from the bland stock Ferrari pop ups on the F355. What do you think?
Will OCT 14, 09:33 PM
300ZX Z32?
Bloozberry OCT 14, 09:58 PM
1990-1996 Nissan 300ZX.
355Fiero OCT 15, 02:00 PM
Nice headlights Blooz;

I always wondered if those would fit as they would be so much easier to fit rather than making and fitting the oem style. A little fit and finish and those will add to the look very nicely. I started building my own proctor style lights in the original holes but ended up getting the oem headlights I molded instead.

Cheers
Don
Bloozberry OCT 23, 10:15 PM
Thanks Don I had to design my own pushrod system for my Stinger (308 replica) headlight pods and was never very happy with them... the rods were over twice as long as the stock ones were, the headlight pods were further apart offsetting the rods from the motor lever, and the geometry meant that the stock lever stops couldn't be used. I just couldn't make the system as play-free as stock, and that's the same conundrum I would be facing with the F355. I hope yours work out better... perhaps you'll share your system design so I can retrofit it into my 308 some day.

Back to suspension stuff! I decided to let the shock absorber bell crank mount stew some more and work on the trailing link mounts instead. In reality, I should have started with the trailing link mounts before the bell crank anyway, because until they are done, the location of the knuckles isn't pinned down in three dimensions, making it harder to get precise measurements for the bell crank location. As per my earlier drawings, I knew I wanted to attach the trailing link mounts to the lower frame rail, unlike the Fiero which has them attached to the cradle. My reason for doing it this way was because the new cradle and lowered suspension resulted in the trailing links being closer to the lower frame rail than the cradle.

Still, the biggest challenge is that the underside of the lower frame rail is curved, and the sides also change angles right where I need to locate the trailing link mounts. Laser level to the rescue! With some fooling around, I was finally able to come up with a two-part template that is feasible from a fabrication and installation stand point, and should rigidly hold the trailing link in place. Here's what the template for the driver's side looks like (disregard the lightening holes... I'm still debating whether I will add them or not):



It will fit on the lower frame rail just behind the cabin, like this:



The outboard side of the mount will be welded to the underside of the frame rail, which you can't see at the moment because the stock spot-welding flange on the frame rail obscures the view. Then, the inboard side of the mount will get welded to the inboard wall of the frame rail along the top, and the bottom will be welded to the top of the chassis cradle mounting flange like this:



Finally, the two halves of the mount will be welded to each other along their bottom edges. Once I knew what the pieces needed to look like, I cut them out of 3/16" steel plate leaving extra material wherever I knew I would need to leave it to give me the leverage to bend them:



Here's the second of two bends being made to the inboard plate in my 12 ton hydraulic press.



Here are inboard and outboard halves of one trailing link mount, fresh out of the press:



The extra material left in place for the bending process will get trimmed off now, but not before a final tweak to get the angles just right. The nature of steel is such that to get a 90 degree bend, you need to bend it past 90 degrees since it will always spring back a few degrees. Since my bender was made with 90 degree materials, the parts end up somewhere around 95 degrees once removed. I found that getting that last 5 degrees or so wasn't going to be easy with the 3/16" thick plate and the tools I had, so I dropped the parts off at the local welding shop for them to bend them that last little bit.

[This message has been edited by Bloozberry (edited 10-23-2013).]

Bloozberry NOV 02, 09:22 PM
As things seem to go with this project, getting the trailing link mounts lined up and welded in place was much easier said than done. The first thing I realized is that there simply wasn't enough working space between the bottom of the lower frame rail and the top of the cradle while the cradle was still in place. Then there was the issue of play in the location of the knuckle because of mismatched metric bolts in SAE holes in a few spots, and vice versa. To get the trailing link mounts accurately located, I first had to address these problems.

That meant removing all the suspension parts from the cradle, then pulling the cradle out to give me room to work. Once that was done I got busy with the wire wheel on the angle grinder and took the lower frame rails down to bare metal. I had marked the approximate location of the trailing link mount so I was then able to fine tune the shapes of the mounts to the frame rails. Once done, I tacked the outer half of the mount in place to provide myself with a starting point. (The lower square tube in the photo is the front cradle mount that was extended 3" further backwards to accommodate the chassis stretch):



Here's how the inboard half of the trailing link mount will be installed. It's bent along the top to meet up with the side wall of the frame rail, and at the bottom it will be welded to the extended cradle mount:



And here's a shot from the rear showing how the two pieces form a box with the frame rail forming the top of the box:



Now onto those pesky little details. The '88 rear knuckles have 12 mm diameter holes in the bottom to mount the lower lateral links to the knuckle. These are the holes that are notorious for "egging out" slightly and making a little slop in the toe of the wheel. My car didn't have enough miles on it to have worn the holes out of round, but I got them reamed out to 1/2" diameter to suit the 1/2" bolt I wanted to run through the hole in order to properly fit the 1/2" dia rod ends I bought for the new lateral links (phew!). I didn't trust any of the equipment in my shop to bore the hole straight through so I took both knuckles to my trusted local machine shop where they did them on a mill:



Now that a 1/2 bolt fits through the hole, that should take the play out of the bottom end.

The next thing was to address the much larger amount of play at the top of the knuckle. If you recall, the holes in the top of the knuckle (that used to hold the strut) are made for 16 mm diameter bolts, however in my design the top bolt is replaced by a 1/2" diameter bolt. I wanted to make a sleeve to ensure there would be little room for any slippage. Rather than making a simple concentric sleeve though, I decided to make an offset one that would allow me to retain some camber adjustment without lengthening or shortening the links. I started out by cutting the threaded portion off an M16 grade 10.9 bolt, and drilling successively larger diameter holes axially through the shank:



Then, once I reached the 1/2" diameter I was looking for, I cut the head off the bolt leaving me with an offset sleeve:



The sleeve can now be mounted in one of two ways, either with the offset towards the center of the car for less camber, or towards the outside for more camber. One thing for sure, the knuckle won't flop around that top bolt anymore:



Lastly, since I was at the machine shop for the knuckles anyway, I brought four rod end spacers along with me that needed to be shaved down from 0.500" to 0.370" in length... (some day I'll get a lathe.) These are the spacers that are used at the lower end of the shock absorber push rod.