well 1st off i nipped down to see karl (www.kdtriumph.com) one saterday and we decided to do a few bits on the car and started on the wheel bearings as they were fooked, stripped everything off cleaned the hubs up and stuck the running ring? that the bearing runs on, only to find that the hubs were mega fooked aswell! the runner just spun round easy peasy! bum! (no wonder i was getting vibration on the motorway!) and we had no thers there! but wait! there was the vitesse he svaed only the other day! perfect! (i still agreed with jason that we should have just wipped off the whole front suspension of karls knakered vitesse ;) hehe) so hadda cuppa and set to work on stripping the vitesses hubs down, and luckily enough they were fine! took up the whole day though! nevermind! Plus just to top the day off i had quite a big oil leak on the way back out my oil cooler! pulled off the m42 and put me breaks on and suddenly swerved over the left as my right brake was just covered in oil! parked up at tesco's to fill up and on my way out from paying i noticed quite a large pool of oil underneath! oops! got it home tried to sort it but no luck so wipped it off!
then only on saterday (5th of may) on the way home from loughborough, i go round a roundabout and hear a clunk! had my music on so didnt quite make out what it was, still drove and not far from home so i thought id carry on steadily, pulled up at some traffic lights on the M1 roundabout, lights went green set off and CLUNK! nearside dropped to the ground! then.........
SHIT! luckily nothing was behind me and just checked nothing was coming by the side before i could jump out! Couldnt have parked it better! blocking the northbound exit! haha then CRAP i hadent got the breakdown number! lukily enough i rang James shackford and he had it, rang them up 'well be with you in about an hour' AN HOUR! your kidding me! then the blooming highway 'stand there like your doing something' police, and said they were going to have to drag it! drag it my ARSE! then just to show they had no clue at all they said 'does it not have a towing eye?' err NO! so they went and hooked it up their own way so i thought i best go check.......
well........my little godson could do better! they only went and hooked it up to the front suspension didnt they?!?! 'HOW THE HELL YOU GUNNA TOW IT LIKE THAT! THATS THE BLOODY BROKEN BIT YOU TIT!' i think my words were, or something along those lines........lol and as i had said no that ment they had to get the police out to get permission....... so waiting around for them, ringin up brekdown people telling them to get here quick! 'should be about 40mins sir' BALLS! then to make things worse i see the cop car turn up.............YES! the tow truck was behind it! woohoo! and he certainly knew what he was doing! got on the back of the truck with hardly an extra scratch on it! top marks for the footman james free breakdown cover! part from rubbish woman in the office........ got it home and confirmed my suspicions that it was the vertical link that had snapped.
and while i was waiting for the tow truck to arrive i thought id add some 'pimp' suspension :D
Plus it just so happened i was off to canleys that afternoon with james to take part in the HCR (more to follow later) so managed to get all the bits i needed to get it back on the road, and also found out hes bringing out trunnionless ones that come off a caterham set up, which then also allows you if you wish to fits the alloy hubs which have HUGE wheel bearings, wider range of 4 pot lightwieght calipers and roudn better braking system. so i know what im buying in a month when they are ready!
so next morning after the HCR got the bits from Dave and set off home (HCR being a night rally for you that dont know) and had about 30mins sleep in total i reckon. and so Phil (top man!) encouraged me to get it done sunday and he came over and offered a hand! well it all came apart ok untill w got to the stub axel removal from the V link. well heres how it ended up...........
heated, cooled, angle grinded, hammered and chiseled and even then it still put up a fight!
and while we were at it we went about sticking superflex bushes (thanks to KD for suppling them!) and my my how bad were my old one at the front! i will have pics i promise! the worst ones as usual were the bottom 2 of the suspension, i just have the diff and anti roll bars to do now and im done! and they were easy peasy to fit!
got it all done and dropped it down so it could sit on all 4 tyres again and checked and tightened everything up and took it for a spin round the block, cor blimey! feels LOADS sturdier now! and just to show how knackard my old bushes were, the front of the car has now raised up! madness! and so that evening i had dinner and iv never felt so dead in my life! (well probably tonight aswell!) lay down in bed at about 9 and just took a pic before i fell asleep.......
you know youv had enough when your eyes are as red as your cheeks!
future plans to be done asap:
still awaiting my AVO's shox from jigsaw as the suppliers are being a right pain in the arse! argh! and will then be sticking 600lb springs in aswell, luuuuuuurvly and get the back lowerd aswell and then im ready for a suspension alignment and can then stick my revs back on!
2ndly i need to sort out my cooling, overheated like a biatch last year so after speaking to Mike in coventry im going to follow his set up wich uses a mk2 golf rad and get my header tank and EWP fitted aswell, he used this last summer and was fine so i know it works! and will be cheaper and take up abit less space AND be lighter than having my current one recored.
