My baby turned 300 at last (pic heavy)

[discostig]

Also drove it to the Pinnacles again. Didn't get a mad sunset shot like the last trip

...but I do at least have some with the mad new rims and PAINTED calipers on it!

Edited 01/07/14 03:24 PM by -SteveR-

[XF Falcon]

scha-wing !!

[Panda Eyes]

yep- veh noice...

[discostig]

Damn I missed a golden opportunity in the link pins post.

After removing the old link pins, I cleaned out the hole by fingering it thoroughly.

[discostig]

So a proper drive today to pick up 30L of Castrol Edge 5w-40 for $240 (score) showed me that my trick had not worked, I had some mad rattles from the rear. Tried removing loose items from the boot to no avail. Once back home I got under the car again, this time on stands to give myself a little more room.

Yesterday I tested out the things by hitting them with a wood block and found no rattles. A drive obviously loosened up the dirt or whatever was holding them in place because today even grabbing the link pins I could freely rattle them. I knew they had to come back out but I had used a bit of loctite doing up that top nut, meaning it would be hard to get back off and I wasn't keen on doing the "jacking up the car by the link pins" trick again as it is pretty dodgy really.

I was keen to get a spanner in there and realised it was entirely possible due to the arm being hollow:

Got the dust boot (think that's the name?) on each of them to slide down with the help of Mr Screwdriver and some fiddling

Stuck on my 5/8" spanner and was able to spin off the nuts no problem.

I wasn't having a repeat performance so I made sure to degrease and wipe down all surfaces (rust on the bump stop landing pad is a bit of a worry...)

Once again I fingered the holes to ensure cleanliness

Always make sure if the opportunity presents itself like this to FINGER BOTH HOLES THOROUGHLY. I highly recommend it. If you like, you can finger BOTH AT ONCE but don't lose concentration and over enthusiastically finger or someone could get hurt.

With that out of the way I refitted them and gave it a wiggle, still loose...remembering what people had said about the stepped washer needing grinding I had a closer look

The washer is too tall and that slack space is the cause of the rattle of course.

At this point I got excited as I was able to get the geeky tools out!

Total thickness of washer is 5.5mm

Larger step is 3mm

This leaves 2.5mm for the step. I wanted to know how much to file off so I tried to get the micrometer into the hole but I found the head was too big to fit. We've all been there, right?

I measured other parts of that piece of metal and the result was 2mm. I was hoping it was uniform thickness but from the earlier eyeballing of how much the washer protruded I was confident.

Measuring further along the arm, making sure it was the same piece of metal.

Anyone who hasn't used a micrometer like this, the vertical marks line are in 0.5mm increments and the horizontal ones on the handle (which spins) show you how far to the next 0.5mm you are. Zero spins past every 0.5mm. Thrilling!

Anyway I was gunning for 0.5mm off the washer. I'd bought a file previously which I used for getting out some rim rash. Flat side up and get rubbing!

This was incredibly therapeutic despite (or perhaps in addition to) the gentle rain.

I measured points around each washer as I went and eventually got there.

First washer was a bit off, went to 4.72mm

Second one was pretty good though, 4.96mm

I want them to be slightly undersize anyway to make sure the arm itself gets most of the clamping force when they are fitted.

I dropped the stepped washers in from the top this time since they now fit properly with the dirt gone. Doing them up I realised I had no need for the spanner inside the arm, they stopped spinning now that the arm was clamped properly. This meant taking them back out and fixing up the dust boots so they covered the joints again and refitting. Lowered the car and realised one of them was backwards through the sway bar, hahaha. You SOB. Jacked it back up and swapped it in.

Test drive tomorrow! Should be good to go this time

Edited 04/07/14 11:45 AM by -Stever-

[k31th]

Bloody nice thread, Steve. The detail in your write ups is of optimum quality.

I hope those link pin washers are a done deal! Did you ask P@ for any advice on how thick they should actually be?

[Bizkets is Drunk?]

is it the same process as the fg. hopefully.

[discostig]

Cheers Keith. Pat is aware of two thicknesses of metal in the Ford arms, one would be 2.5mm and the one I have is 2mm requiring the grind down of 0.5mm. Washer could be 5mm total and it would fit both but not sure if the 0.5mm would cause issues for the fatter cars?

No idea on the FGs sorry Bizkets!

Here's a video of me spinning the washer, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[.Stripes.]

Good write up Steve! Glad I mentioned having to grind down the stepped washer. Mine clunked all sorts of bad initially, so my mechanic got grinding, although his was a big spinny mechanical type dealio...none of this manual labour business you had going on. But yeah, got rid of the clunking after grinding. Hope it sorts your clunks bud, and good work on emphasising the importance of fingering the hole! Oh yeah, I still owe you that ride in the GT hey!

Edited 04/07/14 12:48 PM by .Stripes.

[discostig]

Yeah you do! I'll have to whore along on a future cruise for sure. Keen to get a ride in a modern blown V8!