At last I got the front springs and rear shocks that I had ordered last July at JAE. I took them with the rear springs that I already had up to Kevin to have the lot fitted.
First he fitted the front springs – nice and straightforward. While he had the passenger side strut removed he swapped the drive shaft. The one originally fitted was from a non-lsd gearbox and it didn’t fit properly – dripping oil over my drive for the last 15 months. With the new shaft fitted there have been no drips at all (yet!!!).
The rear springs are also easy to fit once the strut has been removed. This involves disconnecting the flexible brake hose from the rigid brake line – meaning that the brakes have to be bled when it’s all put back together. Fitting the Konis is not so easy. The new shocks fit inside the casing of the original strut so the original innards have to be removed before you can do anything else. To release the oil pressure in the strut you have to drill a 3mm hole in the bottom of the strut. Cut off the top of the casing so that the oil can be drained and the piston can be removed. Drill a bigger hole in the bottom of the strut to take the new fixing bolt and cut back the top of the casing so it’s the correct length for the new shocker. Put in the new Koni and bolt it in making sure that the bolt is correctly tightened. These Konis are only adjustable off the car so Kevin set them midway before reassembling the springs and top mounts.
What a difference the new front springs have made. The extra weight of the 4a-gze over the original 4a-fe means that even with 30% uprated springs the front suspension was regularly bottoming out. I had screwed the front Konis down as firm as they would go but I still had problems. With the new springs I’ve been able to back off the Konis to about half of the maximum firm setting. Much better, more controlled ride and so much smoother to drive.
While the car was on the ramps I noticed that the rubber exhaust hangers on the back box were pretty ropey - one broken and the other badly perished. With the MOT due in the first week of November I had to get that sorted and put on some new FORD (AARRGGHH) rubbers as a stop gap until I can get something better.