Wednesday 14 March 2012

MR2 gets some more maintenance...

So yesterday was a write off. Went to cut off the bolts and change my front track rod ends and found the angle grinder had thrown the death sparks. So in an effort to progress things, i set about cracking all the suspension bolts to ready for the poly bush instal. Couldnt find my wreckers bar for love nor money, and Camaro progress was going even worse, so the towel was thrown.

So today i hit it with full blown enthusiasm. Without going into the Camaro, the first point of contact was chopping the old track rods off. I should point out that i picked up a pair of front track rods as i was planning on making up a set of rear tie bars, but the TB group buy came along so i had them sitting around. Waste not want not! Typically thoughit was eBay strikes again, and once i chopped the old ones off i found that the MK1 rod ends i bought were nothing like the ones i needed. Bumsticks. I managed to catch a thread on the old one but it was barely a couple of turns.. Not drivable. And as usual nowhere in the central belt of Scotland keeps these parts in stock, so the MR wont be moving till tomorrow.


As i was stranded at the garage all day anyway, i made a crack at installing the poly bushes. Surprisingly the suspension came apart quite easily! Especially these control arm bits:


...which i reckoned may be my own personal brand of hell. Getting the lower arm bushes out was my own brand of hell though. I *tried* being all smart and engineery about it, doing something like this:


...and firing 12 tons of force against the bush....


...but all i managed to do was force my 3" wrecker bar into a shape resembling an over-ripe banana. Time for the more traditional method:


FFFIIIIIRRRREEEEEEE!!!!!!!!


BUUUURRRRRNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!

 
Fitted! Well, it was a bit more involved than that. Nonetheless, thats the full front of the MR2 polybushed. Just a proper set of track rod ends to fit and i can see if this makes a difference!!!

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