Tuesday 11 September 2012

Front springs - fourth time lucky!!

Tonight's blog post is brought to you by Denise Gadsden, Catherine and Paul Price, who have been tremendous supporters of Team Booger Mobile over the years.

It's a blog post that was two days in the making, so kick back and enjoy the ride!!


Damian started Monday looking for the keys to Booger Mobile, before heading up to the shed and finding them hanging in the ignition...  super security that!!


He headed out to Jason's place, with the plan that they would get the springs sorted out one way or another, then head back to Damian's place to get some of the trickier stuff sorted out...  Little did Damian realise that this was all a pipe dream...


The trip took the boys to two different spring places, one of whom quite nicely referred the boys to the other, as they didn't have the experience with the questions that Damian was asking.  At the second place, measurements were taken and the dude was certain that he had a spring that could do the trick - standard height plus about 2cm (standard height is about 39cm from centre of hub to the underside of the guard - currently Booger Mobile sits about 35cm from centre of hub to the underside of the guard).

After admitting to Damian that he might have led him astray, the spring shop dude decided that a particular spring with a 10mm spacer was the trick... however the spacers that they had weren't going to cut it, as they were designed for cars with deep spring-holders that would hold both the spacer and spring.

Damian (ably assisted by Jason) came up with a better design, so it was off to Poly Flex to get some custom spacers made up.  These would be ready by Tuesday afternoon...  While there, plenty of discussions took place regarding sponsorship of Booger Mobile - watch for details of this in the coming days!!


In their travels the boys stopped off at a wrecking yard and picked up a replacement accelerator cable.  Damian was dubious that it would actually fit correctly...


Jason removed the air cleaner, and lo and behold, Damian was right.  It had a different size connector doohickey on it... back together it all went!!


Having run out of time to get anything further done on Monday, Damian headed home, getting stuck in a small traffic jam for about 10 mins, where the temperature rose to around 100C.


Safely back in the shed...


Tuesday evening rolled around, and Jason arrived with the spring and spacers.  (One of the springs was kept as a guide.)


The spacer fit neatly inside the spring top mount.


One spring compressed (with the top mount and spacer sitting on top, but not actually pressed into position).


And installed...


Dropped down, the height measured 45cm from centre of hub to underside of guard.


Both sides.  It was time for a quick test drive to bed them in... Where would they be sitting on their return?


After the test drive - height from centre of hub to underside of guard - 40cm.  Slightly higher than standard height, and 5cm higher than where it was sitting on the previous springs.  SUCCESS!!


Passenger side.


And the strut towers look awesome too - back to the standard ones!


With the back jacked up to show the approximate ride height after getting the rear leaf springs replaced...  That's next cab off the rank!


Before heading off, Jason helped Damian investigate the new accelerator cable... looks as though some custom brackets may be required (again) to get them into the correct place... this might also include switching back to the K&N filter... watch this space!!

As a side note - Jason noticed that in the shed, Damian actually had a spare accelerator cable, exactly the same as the one he had purchased, only newer...  Jason laughed... Damian was less amused.

Four weeks to go!!  Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!

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