Just a quick little update before i go out for an Aus day BBQ. Yesterday i got the brake lines made up, and then set about getting the rear suspension in.
Springs, easy, just drop them in. Rear AGXs on the other hand, sweet pain in the arse getting the hard poly bushes into the hole on the AGX rear which is slightly too small, from the pics on another guide it seems that they have updated the Focus rear shock slightly with the outer bushing tube now being integral with the housing. So i had to grind that off and then i made up a little die to push in the bush with:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29763-1/IMG_1045_s.jpg[/IMG]
After that i bolted up the suspension and then put the rear dogbones and discs on followed by a lot of swearing when i realised that the idiotic machinist who had turned out the center hole on the discs had it off center so that the runout at the edge of the disc was 1.8mm on one disc and 2.9mm on the other disc…. so it was fouling on the inside of the caliper slightly.
After much mucking around i decided to see whether my lathe really oould machine out to 308mm, which it can…. JUST
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29766-1/IMG_1046_s.jpg[/IMG]
In that position the disc is about 2mm off touching the slide, and about 10mm off the ways. The cross slide is as far back as it can go, and the compound as far forward. Either way it worked, with lots of patience i now have discs which have about 0.2mm runout around the entire disc, i cant get them any better than that because of how the tooling sits and chatters slightly.
Either way it bolted up and worked.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29769-1/IMG_1048_s.jpg[/IMG]
That was last night. This morning afte rmy wife left for work at 7:30 i did some quick tidying up, and mirrored the rear setup on the other side, and then after a quick boltcheck, lowered it back onto its wheels:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29772-1/IMG_1049_s.jpg[/IMG]
Looks quite good IMHO. Im yet to set the front suspension properly, as its not sitting on level ground there (its slightly slanted towards a drain which you can see by the rear wheel). Regardless i have to bleed the brakes anyway, as my speed bleeder has borked the valve in it, so that will have to wait until my wife gets home so she can operate the brake pedal.
Finally a couple of gratuitous shots of the new brake package:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29775-1/IMG_1050_s.jpg[/IMG]
This is with the new meshies i bought, they are a 16×7 stock Nissan wheel, no idea what they are off.
Im going to paint the R32 wheels the same charcoal as the rear, and these meshies the same leaving the outer section silver.
And then the rears:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29778-1/IMG_1051_s.jpg[/IMG]
Also, anyone know whether the front arches are actually higher than the rears? From a rough measurement it looks like they are, as the sills are roughly equal height there.