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Adoom's 1972 Triumph 2000


Adoom

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Using the body measurements in my factory service manual I found the centerline and ran a string down it.

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I made a much longer isosceles triangle from the front mounts and lined the subframe up with the center line.

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And raised the subframe up so the front mounts are not the lowest hanging thing under the car. The bolts are only there to hold the triangle, but I cut some holes to raise it up enough.

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They are higher now than the original triumph mounts. Yes.... I used some worn out cut off discs as washers.

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Then adjusted the height and measured it and measured it and measured it and measured it and measured it. Then temporarily welded it to my cross member so it doesn't move while I make the actual mounts.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My replacement subframe bushes arrived last week. I thought I should at least replace the wobbly front ones before I weld in any mounts for it.

What a bitch of a job.

The bush is bonded into a metal sleeve and that is pressed into the subframe.

I drilled a bunch of holes through the rubber until I could get the center of the bush out, then I used the reciprocating saw to cut into the metal sleeve. After putting a couple of slits in it, removing the remains of the bush was easy. Despite being careful, the imprecise nature of the reciprocating saw meant I cut a bit deep in one place and made a groove in the subframe. But I was able to fix it up with the tig.

Then I had to press the new bushes in.

Hammer? Nope.

G-clamp? Nope.

Bit of exhaust pipe kinda the right diameter and using the vice? Sort of.

I ended up having to make two alloy rings. One to fit around the top of the bush and press on a metal lip. The other as a spacer because the bottom of the bush protrudes about 10mm.

And the vice, with a cheater bar. My poor vice.

Oh, and to make the rings... I used a holesaw in the lathe, which took a million years because I had to back out to clear the teeth every 0.0000000001mm depth of cut.

Then I asked the internet and found out about trepanning tools. So for the second ring, I made one of them out of the only HSS I had... 6mm square. It worked, but it was so thin it vibrated like motherfucker and cut millions of tiny needles. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

AAAAAARGH!!

So with my two triangles connected to the subframe mounts, lined up with the centerline of the car and using the factory body reference points, I thought the subframe must be pretty straight.

Now I have reinstalled the suspension and wheels(no tyres).

I don't know what measurements to trust. According to my triangles the subframe is straight.

But with the wheels on I have measurements that disagree.

The factory adjustments are set to max toe out and max neg camber. Both sides are at the same height.

If I put a straight edge vertically against the wheel, both sides sit 20mm in from the top of the wheel arch. So You would think "it's in the middle".

I used a plumb bob to see where on the wheel arch the wheel center was and marked it on the wheel arch. I was having trouble getting an accurate measure using just the rear guard, so I measured from the mark to the A pillar (2030 both sides) and the B pillar (right side 1128, left side 1122) and the leading edge of the rear guard(right 365, left 364). So both wheels are the same distance front/back, right?

I've measured from the centerline of the car to the flat bit on the lower part of the sill, along the whole length, on both side of the car, the measurement is the same within about 5mm. So I thought I could use it to measure the toe angle.

So I got some 1800mm lengths of aluminium angle and attached it horizontally to both wheels. Then measured the distance between that and the sill(over a distance of 1300mm). According to that, the right wheel sticks ~10mm further out than the left wheel?!

The right wheel toes out by 0.8 degrees and the left wheel 0.2 degrees. Sure I could adjust that out, but I shouldn't need to and AFAIK it's a large percentage of the available adjustment. Or I could rotate the subframe anticlockwise(looking from above), but that would move the right wheel forward and the left wheel back and put my triangles off by heaps. 

 

So what's right and whats wrong?

A wonky subframe could cause it, but I would be surprised if my narrowed subframe was wonky, the jig I used to narrow it was/is substantial.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I fitted my modified cross member to the yellow one to use as a reference to work out what's going on with the rear alignment.

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With the rack in the center of its movement, and both tie rods bottomed out on the rod end, the right wheel toed out and the left wheel toed in.

After much fucking around I found that the centerline I had marked on the cross member, which I aligned the rack with, was 4mm too far the the right. So I moved the rack mount jig thing over by 4mm. Now I could align the front wheels more or less straight and the adjustment on each side(exposed thread) was within 1mm of each other.

Then I used a plumb bob to mark the center of each wheel on the floor. Both sides were the same 2713mm!

And took some other measurements to draw on the car...

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The front and rear track, measured from the outside of the wheels, is pretty close. The front has 3mm spacers(washers) for clearance. I've got some 5mm spacers coming. I'm undecided if I will also put spacers at the rear.  

I also ran a string line between the front and rear wheels. Left side has as close to zero toe as I can measure. Right side had a bunch of toe out... Not sure why. I dialled it out with the factory eccentric bolt, but it used up almost all the adjustment. I supposed I could get some adjustable track arms if it needs them. 

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  • 1 month later...

I'm a bit stuck, not sure what to do next...

Decided to lie under the car and stare at the floor where the gearbox cross member needs to exist.

It's a W57 box, so it has a weird angled 'V' shape where the mount bolts on. The previous owner of the box cut up that mount to make it into a flat plate so a different rubber mount could be used. It's the mount on the left, I don't know what it's from.

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If I use that mount, then add a cross member to it, it will hang much too low under the car.

After looking at a photo of the factory  Supra/W57 mount, that will also be too low.

So I had a look under the Starlet, which has a CA nissan gearbox, and thought "hmmmmmm".

So I borrowed the mount off the Starlet. The one on the right.

If I use the modified 'V' bracket thing and the nissan mount with some 40mm box as the cross member, it will hang about as low as the factory Triumph mount.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Since the engine and box has mounts now, I suppose I should take the engine back out to look at modifying the sump and properly welding the engine mounts.

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Bonus, the oil pickup pipe doesn't start bending at that step so I can cut this much out with no problem. This means I can lift the rack about 10-15mm, which means I can also shorten my spacers on the steering arms/tie rod ends. I do have an AC tig welder, but I haven't attempted any aluminium welding. I will need to find something to practice on. I plan on bolting the sump to to something flat and stiff to try keep it from warping. 

I also cleaned, prepped and zinc primed to weld the engine mounts on. I didn't grind down the original tack welds so I can use them to align the mounts.

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Wandering pick a part and measuring discs and calipers I decided that Subaru calipers would probably work. Also I had already decided on 26mm X 280mm discs from a peugeot and the Subaru discs were the same diameter and thickness.

It was a turbo Impreza of some kind. The chassis number started with "GGA....", but the rego and chassis plate where missing. I think it would be 2001+.

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I still need to redrill the disc and make a sandwich plate to bolt it to the hub. Unfortunately this hub is scrap because I turned the location diameter for the disc ~0.5mm undersize. My lathe is small and I didn't want to risk misalignment by removing the hub from the chuck to test fit the disc so I just used the vernier caliper to check the size. Thinking about this now, next time I will leave the hub in the chuck, and remove the whole chuck from the lathe to test fit it to the disc. I have three more hubs, so I can only fuck up one more.

It looks like it will be straightforward to make the caliper adapter bracket.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Used some 6mm flat bar to work out the dimensions and hole spacing of the caliper brackets.

The caliper mount is not sitting perfectly parallel to the disc, there is a ~1mm difference between the leading and trailing end. I hope this is not because of triumph manufacturing tolerances, but by a bit of wiggle in the spacers and will be resolved with the final 18mm thick brackets.

The caliper fits with heaps of room to spare. I took them off so I can use the pads for alignment.

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I cut a hole in this sump I paid lots of money for.

I need to get some 4-5mm sheet to fill the hole.

I want to make up a jig/brace/plate I can bolt it to so there is no warping when it gets welded. 

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