Soon we'll be able to drop it back on the ground. Hooray for progress.
What's wrong with this picture? Why, yes, the front springs are bent. Bent! Look closely and you'll see a short piece of pipe locating the coils. Trick.
While the front suspension was apart, we replaced the wheel bearings.
Check it out, our tires are here: all-weather Kumho Ecsta ASX rubber.
Figuring out the ABS took some detective work. Fortunately Rennie was able access his Alldata account while away from the shop.
And we have a roller. Now it's time to bring it to life.
We were finally able to put the car on the ground. Looks nice. As the hip kids say, it has some stance. Old-school hotrodders would call it rake. It also bounces like a you-know-what. Sure we can slip a set of real shocks under this thing? (We kid, we kid.)
Today’s to-do list: Finish up the front suspension, add a kill switch, and do some other stuff.
The front wheel bearings were of unknown age and condition, so we spent a few bucks to install new ones. If anyone says that’s outside the sprit of the rules, well, we’ll just nod and smile. If it’s any consolation, we didn’t use any kind of trick grease. The parts store also handed us the wrong bearings, so the job required two trips. There, feel better?
We also installed a four-pole kill switch. Should the need arise, we’d like to kill the entire electrical system, including the all-important fuel pump. We’ll detail all of the electrical work in the magazine, as it’s good stuff.
We also (finally) got our brake calipers back on the car and flushed away the old, filthy fluid. Getting everything to work around the original ABS system took some effort.
Time to discuss the front springs. The ones on the car were bent—like, they made a turn. Our car originally had an airbag suspension, and this was someone’s cure. A short piece of pipe located the lowest coils. Yes, welcome to our nightmare.
We found a set of throwaway coils from another full-sized Ford, and some math—we’ll detail that in the magazine—said that we’d need to cut two coils. So we did.
We were finally able to put the car on the ground. Looks nice. As the hip kids say, it has some stance. Old-school hotrodders would call it rake. It also bounces like a you-know-what. Sure we can’t slip a set of real shocks under this thing? (We kid, we kid.)
We never did it, but had heard of success with taping a hole in a stock shock and adding thicker hydraulic oil. Ours seemed OK without it, though.
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