Big redo of the old bucket

[PotvinGuy]

My alignment of the IRS didn't exactly turn out as planned. After I thought I had it dialed in, I went for a spin. Literally! spinout aug 2015

Seems I got carried away with my adjusting and the suspension was hanging on by a thread...really, one thread of a bolt. Even though I was in a traffic cluster, the gods were smiling and I swerved off the shoulder into tall grass and motored down a ravine, missing all the signs and boulders and other unyielding objects, and doing a 180 at the end. It was way better than the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, my second favorite WDW attraction after the Colonoscopy Cruise.

A piece of the suspension went missing and I figured it was long gone in the grass, but later we looked around and it was just sitting on the shoulder. And unharmed.

Here's the bearing that lost it's grip:

The ball is loose and worn, so I'm going to replace both ends. Each side of the IRS has one of these to adjust the toe. I'll add more info as I figure out what went wrong.

 

[choppedtop]

I got a little nervous about having not enough threads into the hairpins on mine. I asked Spirit to make another set that were 1 1/2 inches longer to put my mind at rest. The original hairpins were long enough for standard setup, but I wanted to move my rear axle another inch back.
Lee

 

[choppinczech]

You must have 9 lives.

 

[Indycars]

Yikeeees you scared me with that one. Glad your Ok!!

 

[2old2fast]

I remember spinning mine out on wet pavement [stupid move] through a deep ditch ending up in a bean field ,thinking oh ,CRAP !!! Cleaned mud $ soybean residue off the car for 2 weeks
dave​

 

[cooter]

I remember spinning mine out on wet pavement [stupid move] through a deep ditch ending up in a bean field ,thinking oh ,CRAP !!! Cleaned mud $ soybean residue off the car for 2 weeks
dave​

Bet you cleaned more thsn that?

 

[cooter]

Got caught in rain with slicks on a car once. Not good

 

[PotvinGuy]

Yeah, good thing we get the big bucks for this. We do, right?

 

[PotvinGuy]

It seems the rear end was cocked to the right in the frame, making it impossible to align. Here's how it looks:

There are two plates that mount to the crossmember and each attaches to 3 studs on either side of the differential. I found two studs missing, two backing out and only two still tight. Maybe this little incident saved me from much worse trouble down the road. There is also a yoke that attaches the snout of the diff to another crossmember:

As you can see, the yoke was off center. It had chewed-up rubber bushings, and I've replace them with a homemade steel bushing:

The tubing is from Discount Steel (Minneapolis and Fort Worth), it's 1-1/8 OD by 1/2 ID. Cut off a new bushing. It was too tight to press in, so I froze it and heated the yoke, and it tapped right in and is now secure. Here's where it goes:

And here it is in place:
:

Now I'll replace all 6 top studs with grade 8 bolts and lockwashers. These changes should stabilize the rear end in the frame, and I can do a proper alignment.

 

[2old2fast]

Loctite is your friend !!
dave

 

[Indycars]

I see your MOXIE, at least it wasn't damaged! hehehehe!!!

 

[old round fart]

OUCH! Can you get any drilled bolts or drill for safety wire? On the other hand it has been built for ever and if it took that long you may be OK. LOL

 

[PotvinGuy]

OUCH! Can you get any drilled bolts or drill for safety wire? On the other hand it has been built for ever and if it took that long you may be OK. LOL

The take-away here is to check all your nuts & bolts regularly, just like checking oil and coolant. I get complacent and lazy. And our cars get a lot more vibration and shock than my Bentley

 

[old round fart]

BENTLEY? Now you are showing off! LOL

 

[PotvinGuy]

Update: The new mounts are in place. Look at that solid connection to the frame:

...and I did a primo alignment on the IRS (I'll do a thread on my method, which is really quite slick). Now the car drives straight, takes acceleration and decel with no twitching, and I'm a happy camper.

 

[PotvinGuy]

Oh my, time does fly. I've put the latest handheld on the FAST EFI, with a color touchscreen and some added functionality. I'll post pics later. Getting ready to mount Houdaille shocks to the front end. And will post pics when I have those in hand. And, I know, I promised a write-up on my alignment method, and it's in the works. Stay tuned.

 

[PotvinGuy]

The electrical panel is getting to be a real mess with added wiring and changes and I need to do more work on it, so I removed it today so I can work on it on the bench in the nice warm house. But the darn thing has 24 multipin connectors plus a dozen new wires without connectors that had to be cut.

The new EFI handheld is buggy and I think it's just electrical noise, so need to rewire that and maybe add some filtering. I don't want to get off on a rant here (of course I do), but why can't the SEMA guys make stuff that can work in a real car, with noisy power and water and dirt?

 

[Indycars]

Well I think you win the most complicated wiring with 24 multipin connectors!

 

[PotvinGuy]

Well I think you win the most complicated wiring with 24 multipin connectors!

"To be on the wire is life. The rest is waiting." Who said that?

 

[Indycars]

Well Google says it was Karl Wallenda.