Last year at on the Pocono East course I tagged
the wall and tore the rear of the car up pretty good.
The right front fender was crushed, bent the RF rim, broke the
kingpin and rotor, and bent the shock arm. The rifht
rear quarter had a good gouge in it, broke the leaf spring and
tweaked the whole clip to the left. I patched it up to
run the rest of the season but it really needed a new rear
clip or new tub. I picked up a tub locally for $50 with
a good rear clip but the rockers and floors were gone. I
contemplated replacing the rear clip only but decided to fit
the replacement tub and them move the cage and suspension
over. I didn't take any pics of the tub when I started
but you know the usual rust spots.
I still need to do final assembly of the engine
and get the rest of the plumbing done but that should be
wrapped up in the next week of so.
This is what the car looked like before and
after the incident and for the rest of the 2007 season.
The camber is not adjustable from the factory and during
hard cornering the camber can actually go positive. Offset bushings are
available but they are limited in how much negative camber you can get, usually
between a half and one degree. I came across aUK site that had offset trunions
and bronze bushings instead of the rubber of urethane bushings.
Below is a picture
comparing the modified trunion to the factory one. Since the rubber offered
some give and prevented wear I added a grease fitting to lubricate the pivot
point.
The following picture is the result of using stock axles and sticky tires. I broke these at Pocono leaving false grid. Hindsight says that the autocross starts started to twist them and they finally broke when I goosed it leaving the pits and had a little wheel hop. The plan is to replace the welded differential and install double bearing hubs and competition axles.
Update: I just finished installing double bearing (DB) hubs and
Winner's Circle (WC) completion axles. The following idea came from a friend who has used this for years. It helps with the oil leakage that the
Spriget rears are notorious for.
The WC axles have a 1" OD and is smooth as opposed to the
rough surface of the stock axles. There
a several lip seals with a 1" ID, the trick is to find the right OD that will
go in but not spin. I tried the following seals, all with a 1"ID for the WC
axles:
CR 9822 1.367" OD
CR 9814 1.375" OD
CR 9837 1.437" OD
I ended up using the 9814 on each side. The inside of the tube is not really machined
for a seal but it will work. I applied
some hylomar to the outside of the seal to help hold it in place and seal
against the rough machining. Since it
isn't a precision bore your results may vary and you may need different seals
on both sides.
To install the seal machined down a piece of round stock
with an overall OD of 1.3" with a step down to 1". On the opposite side of the step bore a 3/4"
hole about 1/2" deep; this will allow you to use a piece of 3/4" round stock to
push the seal in from the opposite side of the housing. An alternative is to drill and tap the small
end to allow you to pull the seal in; your preference. A problem is that the baffles in the housing
are spaced less than the OD of the seal and insertion tool. I ground mine down a little to allow for
clearance. Be sure to clean the shavings
out of the housing.
In the hub itself I used 6207 sealed bearing for the outside
and packed the inside bearing with good quality wheel bearing grease. I could not find a sealed bearing for the
inside. The lip seal in the hub is
really just keeping water and dirt out at this point. I assembled everything and left the axles out
about 1/2", filled the rear with oil and let it sit overnight with no leaks. Obviously this is just a disaster check for
gross leaks but it made me feel better at least. The real results will come when I run the car
The overflows for the radiator expansion tank and carbs as well as the crank case went go into a stainless steel tank that was fabricated to go in the stock battery and heater location.
I added tube
shocks to the front to help improve the handling. The original lever
shocks work well on the street when rebuilt by they are not adjustable and are
prone to fade. The tube shocks are
adjustable Carrera shocks that were intended for a C2 'Vette but never
installed. They have three levels of
adjustment which is much less than a lot of the shocks out there but they are
compact in size. The lower mount in
based on the design from this site http://npmccabe.tripod.com/spritetubeshock.htm
but for the upper mount I used some 11 gauge steel and bent up a bracket as
opposed to the aluminum channel. I
drilled (7) 5/16" holes in the back of the bracket and plug welded it to the
inner fender to spread the load. The steering
rack travel was previously shortened to avoid the caliper hitting the shock.
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