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Same here with the car-time. I run errands when I am not at work on weekdays, and most weekends I spend on the car after I sleep in a bit. But like this last weekend I took Friday off and drove over 800 miles round trip to spend it with family. Gonna celebrate my birthday this Sunday with friends. Then people are like, "So when will it be done?" With all that, I'm hoping to be back on the road by year's end.
Same here with the car-time. I run errands when I am not at work on weekdays, and most weekends I spend on the car after I sleep in a bit. But like this last weekend I took Friday off and drove over 800 miles round trip to spend it with family. Gonna celebrate my birthday this Sunday with friends. Then people are like, "So when will it be done?" With all that, I'm hoping to be back on the road by year's end.
Haha exactly, my birthday was last Monday, so I went out Sunday, the Saturday before that I had a bachelor party, and I have some big party this Saturday with some old college friends that I am considering passing on to get some work done. Then I still need to schedule a few days to go to he beach and do some fishing with my dad, and everyone's always heckling me to come to all the cruise nights (where they ask me about my progress), and that's all goes to the end of the list if the house or my daily needs any repairs or maintenance. I also don't have a real garage so it's hard to work when it's dark out and if it starts down pouring, just call it a day. I pretty much sit at a desk 40+ hours a week and sometimes I think if I had 40+ hours a week just to work on my car, it would be done in a week and a half, hahaha.
Upper perch. My fender to floor ride height is right at 25 5/8". I'd like a little more ground clearance (which is what made me look into collapsed mounts). I also have fender to tire contact under hard braking running 315 rivals up front when racing...I'd like to fix that too lol
More spring rate? Coil overs? Both? Hmmmm decisions decisions.
Smitty, If you want to raise your front end, all you have to do is put spacers on the bottom of your shock at the lower control arm. 3/8" stainless washers will work. Old fashion alignment shims will work too, and are easier because they are open on one end so you don't have to remove shock bolts just loosen them. Unbolt upper ball joint, let suspension droop, add a few shims, then additional until you have quit rubbing. You can then fab a nicer piece if you feel the need, but washers/shims work just fine. I believe the ratio is 1.7:1 on spacers. if you add 3/8" of washers, you get 11/16" lift.
Smitty, If you want to raise your front end, all you have to do is put spacers on the bottom of your shock at the lower control arm. 3/8" stainless washers will work. Old fashion alignment shims will work too, and are easier because they are open on one end so you don't have to remove shock bolts just loosen them. Unbolt upper ball joint, let suspension droop, add a few shims, then additional until you have quit rubbing. You can then fab a nicer piece if you feel the need, but washers/shims work just fine. I believe the ratio is 1.7:1 on spacers. if you add 3/8" of washers, you get 11/16" lift.
Awesome. Thanks a lot for that ratio reference. I spoke to UMI last week and they mentioned doing the shims. I should have the car back on the ground tonight after new upper mounts. I'll give it a week or so before getting new height measurements. If still not to my liking then spacers/longer bolts it is!
Rock auto sells new fender liners for ~$10 ea. Meant to mention that to you before
Thanks, I didn't know that, that's good to know. Except for appearance, there's nothing really wrong with the old ones I have. I was thinking about painting them but they're just going to get sand blasted and you really don't notice them when the car is on the ground.
Thanks, I didn't know that, that's good to know. Except for appearance, there's nothing really wrong with the old ones I have. I was thinking about painting them but they're just going to get sand blasted and you really don't notice them when the car is on the ground.
I hear ya.
I'm just a stickler with wheel wells. Have to be clean on our cars.
Good luck replacing the rubber bump stops. I ordered the rubber bump stops from UMI and they don't come anywhere close to fitting. Obviously they don't fit directly on the factory spacer, but they didn't fit without the spacer either.
Ultimately we we decided that if we had to modify the bump stops, might as well make them fit the spacer. Fortunately my brother had the right discs for his grinder and he did the surgery while I was doing other work.
It was was a pain and took a big chunk of the bump stop off.
I pretty much sit at a desk 40+ hours a week and sometimes I think if I had 40+ hours a week just to work on my car, it would be done in a week and a half, hahaha.
I try not to think of it like work. It's just something to do while I wait for car parts to be delivered.
On the bump stops (not sure how we got on that topic), I made my own out of the urethane Jeep ones. The first set I made had too many holes drilled for softness, so while they worked, they fell apart after a couple of years. I haven't tried these out yet, but I hope they do the trick:
Got the rear end up in the air today. Over all, most of the chassis is pretty clean so I won't be going crazy with the paint like I did in the front. There are a few areas I am going to touch up. The axle has a decent amount of surface rust, I'm not going to mess with it too much as it'll probably be replaced with a 12 bolt in a couple years.
Before I jacked the car up, I removed some of the panels and carpeting to get to the upper shock bolts. By removing the speaker panel on the driver side and the spare jack panel on the passenger side, I was able to pull the carpet up enough to get access. There was some foam pieces that covered the top of shocks.
Once that was done, I jacked the car up and set the stands on the rear frame rails that come down.
I started off by removing the sway bar. You'll need a 13mm deep socket to get the nuts that hold the axle clamps on.
If you want to wrench off the sway bar end links, you'll need a 13mm wrench, a 13mm socket, and some time, I did that on the front and it took a bit of time swinging the ratchet. For these I just got out the sawsall and chopped them off in a couple seconds.
Once those are off, the sway bar should just drop.
The clamp brackets and end-link brackets are some of the crusty items on the car, so I removed them to be cleaned up and painted. You'll need a 13mm for the end-link brackets.
I also removed what was left of the old bump stops. I'm going to hold on to the old bases in case I need to use them as a spacer or something. These are also 13mm.
Here are all of the brackets that need to be cleaned up. That's going to be the biggest part IMO, they're pretty crusty and I'm considering having them sandblasted. One they are ready to go, I should have the back done in a day or so.
FYI, you don't have to take the whole carpet up to get to the shock bolts. You can use the little slits cut in the carpet and just open 2 little flaps. Good for adjusting the Koni's that way!
I didn't notice any slits in the carpet, I think I remember hearing that the later year LS1 cars have them, but I'm not sure about the earlier LT1 cars. I'll double check for them, but taking the carpet up like that wasn't much of a hassle at all, but I can definably see having them for the adjustments.
eb110americana, do you have a part number on that bumpstop? It looks like you had to notch it a little to work. I'm thinking about doing the same thing with UMI's rubber bumpstop.
They are Prothane 1-1301-BL. You can get a pair for under $18 from Summit. Yeah, admittedly they are a bit of a pain to grind down to fit. Plan on spending a few hours with an angle grinder to massage them to fit. The annoying part is that the urethane creates a lot of friction with the cutoff wheel, so you just go slow. I also ground perpendicular to the surface with the edge of the wheel, which takes way longer than going parallel. It's not hard, just grind-test fit-grind-test-repeat... I also added the window through the middle of mine to soften it up. That part is easy. Just drill small holes and keep stepping up into larger bits until they merge. Whether that will work better or worse than the many holes I used before, I don't yet know. I believe you can also purchase stock foam replacements through HawksThirdGen, as they are the same as the third gen cars. As we know, however, the foam doesn't last forever.
No way am I buying those OEM stops for $60/piece. UMI's rubber stops look pretty similar to these Jeep stops, I think I'm going to pick up a set of those and either grind them down or cut that lip off the car, even though I am not a fan of cutting anything off the car.
I did not know about the rubber UMI pieces. If these don't pan out (or rip after a couple years like the old ones) I'll have to try those next. The urethane is just too stiff for this application, hence the holes I've made. You'll have to keep us posted on the feel and longevity of the rubber ones. My work has 9 speed bumps on the entrance/exit road, so I get pretty familiar with the rear stops.
07-19-2017, 11:43 PM
