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Got the engine in on its mounts, once I removed the clutch pack
I used wide masking tape to block off the outboard faces of my passenger side cv joints, leaving the booted side exposed, boot on the shaft, up out of the way. Small cut at the end of the grease packs allowed me to inject quite a bit into the openings. I brought the boot down after I filled as described and crowned some around the shaft.I them taped the circumference of the joint case and flange together matching holes. With the boots taped on, I turned the axle over and used a razor blade to cut out the circles for the 6 bolt holes in the masking tape on each case. I shot the holes with brake cleaner to flush out any residual grease. After both boots were on, I ran the bolts through, took the tape off the outboard faces and injected them with more grease, crowning the area and wiping down prior to bolting in. New joint gaskets on all four mating surfaces on the passenger side.
Vacuumed rat poison from an uninstalled stock muffler
I acquired a stock exhaust from a rennlister last year. I checked it out today before dropping my current custom exhaust. Something was rattling inside the pumpkin. A few pellets of rat poison fell out. Still lots of rattling. I made an extension for my vacuum and pulled out about a cup of rat poison.
I decided to postpone installation until I can get a scope in there to make sure there isn’t a decade-old dead rat in there.
This is not the hack I mentioned previously, but it's certainly a hack. I wanted to check the alignment of my rear wheels after having the subframe out for the TT job. I made two fixtures to make easier getting the strings square with the car, eliminating two degrees of freedom - the widths front and rear. Checked the front while I was at it. Just toe, of course.
Very accurate ... until you do more than one measurement. Not very repeatable - measuring something you can't touch (the string) is difficult. As a rough guide, it may work well enough to avoid quickly destroying a set of tires.
The car handles no differently than before. I'm fairly certain total toe at both ends is too little, if anything, which shouldn't put the tires at risk. I'll keep an eye on them, and Be Happy.
I'm not sure what you mean about "not very repeatable", I use the strings and jackstands method to align my front end.
It's a pretty 'fiddly' setup. You have to make sure that the string is not touching the middle of the rim (MHCs bulge out enough that you need to be about 1/3 up from the floor to clear), you need to make sure that the string is just touching the front of the tire, you need to be very careful when measuring (I use an old, rigid, folding carpenter's rule).
But I can make repeated measurements. In fact, I make sure I get two at each spot that match before I'm comfortable that I've got an accurate measure. I also use strings that are about 12 feet long to get a good, long 'arm' on the measurement.
It's not a fast process, but I got my toe to exactly where I wanted it (1/32nd toe in) and have been able to repeat the measurement after driving some. I was reasonable certain the front end had fully settled, but wasn't willing to take a chance.
Edit to add;
And what did I do to my 928 today? Not a %$#@*& thing. We got 2 %^$#*& feet of snow over the weekend and while it is melting, it will still be another week before I get the cars out. This is the latest I've every gotten my summer cars & motorcycle out.
I'm not sure what you mean about "not very repeatable", I use the strings and jackstands method to align my front end. ....
I set the strings up to be square with the car, an equal distance apart (guaranteed* by the boards they were tied to), and an equal distance from each of the rear wheels, and an equal distance from each front wheel. (*not quite: I eye-balled the boards square to the car.) The errors from this step influence the angle of the strings - can't be much. You can't just touch the tires fore and aft, since the tracks are not quite the same.
I did not get the front wheels pointed forward exactly, just drove in. They were pointed a little left. I averaged their individual measurements.
For the first go, I marked a stick held against the rims with the position of the string, then measured the marks with a caliper. The next three trials were direct measurements with a caliper. I could have done this with more care. - getting down very close to the string, putting a white background on the floor, etc.
Anyway, here's a table of the four measurements on the front wheels. It shows I probably have a little toe-in, but not quite enough, same as my conclusion from a few years ago after taking the front suspension apart for the motor mount job. 1/32" is 0.031.
Ok, you are calling the 'not repeatable' for one setup to the next, not for repeated measurements on this particular setup. That makes sense.
And for the "just touching the tire" on my setup, I'm only doing the fronts (or the rears). I put one stand behind each front wheel, the other about 10' in front of the car.
I get the tires as close to 'straight ahead' as I can and use the 'ziplock bag with a spritz of PAM' (as suggested by DrBob) under the tires* to allow easier turning when adjusting.
I will adjust to get it where I want it, then take a short drive to stress the front end, then set it back up and check again.
Edit to add: * - I couldn't remember the name for these. Slip plates. Duh.
Last edited by Wisconsin Joe; 04-20-2018 at 12:16 PM.
I'm referring mostly to measurements 2, 3, and 4 in my table, done the same way with same set-up, without moving anything. The errors are all from my limited skills in properly lining up a caliper arm to a string. They resulted in calculated toe-in values of -0.013, +0.019 and +0.010. Desired is +0.031 if the recommended 1/32nd inch value is correct; my results had an error range of 0.032. I could probably do better, but I'm anxious to lift the car, take out my front struts, and do battle with the adjustment collars.
The fundamental limitation, it seems to me, is that 1/32nd inch is short! What's the runout on my rims? What's the width of a string? How tight is my steering linkage? Is the car sitting exactly at it's "settled" height? Am I holding the caliper level and at a right angle? Am I looking straight down? Is there really much chance of getting within 1/64 inch, 0.015"?
(The mark-on-stick measurements of trial 1 are of the actual distances, but the caliper measurements of 2, 3, and 4 have a different offset - I held the end of the caliper on the rim, not the normal measuring point. Only the delta's are important, so the offset doesn't matter.)
(Background for the uninitiated: The values in the table are in inches, the difference between distances from the car's centerline (or any line parallel to it such as my strings) to the wheel rims forward and aft; positive means toe-in, negative means toe-out.)
Finally got down to work on the car. Put the seals in the differential for the drive flange. The tool worked great, I know that they are in straight.. Mounted the Central (Torque) tube. Put on my new transmission mounts and replaced the vacuum line up the central tube. Replaced the rear most transmission lines from the tranny to the hard lines with 2 hoses from Greg Browns kit. Still need clips to mount hard lines. Long day, I'm exhausted. Got out of the Cardiac intensive care unit 2 1/2 weeks ago and still don't have much strength But couldn't wait to get back to the 928. Been apart all winter.
04-01-2018, 06:54 PM
