paulandpat
Enthusiast
- Messages
- 320
- Location
- Percy, Normandie
For the last couple of days I have been mostly wrestling with and swearing at the rear suspension on the R4. So far I've managed to disconnect the brake pipes (using a set of crows foot spanners I bought from someone who was moving back to the UK - they've sat in the garage for about 2 years without coming out of the box - he'd had them for 5 years and only used them once......), take the handbrake cables out, and made some progress with taking out the 6 bolts holding the outriggers on.
On the drivers side the bottom one is seized in the tube - I had to cut the head off it as it would not come out past the sill panel....
On the passenger side the bolt head and the nut seem to have rusted away a bit and refuse to be gripped by a 13 mm spanner.....
Judicious use of the angle grinder means that the rotten old out rigger on the drivers side is now mostly consigned to the rubbish bin.
Three questions arise,
Drivers side - do the tubes that the long bolts pass through contribute to the structural rigidity, or are they just there to stop the outrigger etc collapsing if the nut and bolt are overtightened.
Passenger side - it looks as if I need to take the outer wing off to get at the top nut, cut it off and hopefully whack the old bolt out of the tube.
Replacing the outrigger - if the inside of the new outrigger and the stub axle are smeared in copaslip will it rotate after fitting so that I can fit it without taking the stub axle off and disturbing the torsion bars. If not how do you line up the new outrigger so that it fits in the 3 bolts and doesn't tear out the rubber bush when you refit it.
Some photos to help a bit - its a left hand drive car...
On the drivers side the bottom one is seized in the tube - I had to cut the head off it as it would not come out past the sill panel....
On the passenger side the bolt head and the nut seem to have rusted away a bit and refuse to be gripped by a 13 mm spanner.....
Judicious use of the angle grinder means that the rotten old out rigger on the drivers side is now mostly consigned to the rubbish bin.
Three questions arise,
Drivers side - do the tubes that the long bolts pass through contribute to the structural rigidity, or are they just there to stop the outrigger etc collapsing if the nut and bolt are overtightened.
Passenger side - it looks as if I need to take the outer wing off to get at the top nut, cut it off and hopefully whack the old bolt out of the tube.
Replacing the outrigger - if the inside of the new outrigger and the stub axle are smeared in copaslip will it rotate after fitting so that I can fit it without taking the stub axle off and disturbing the torsion bars. If not how do you line up the new outrigger so that it fits in the 3 bolts and doesn't tear out the rubber bush when you refit it.
Some photos to help a bit - its a left hand drive car...