January 11, 2010 - A rear shock in place!
Very exciting. The place where I mounted the plate for the upper shock mount is well tied into the structure of the car and is very solid - although there is some carpet just on the other side at one point, which I got a little warmer than the designer intended. The mount on the axle is only tacked in place, but that's an easy thing to change. I have to pull the rear end out to put a lower mount on the driver's side.
The upper mount is positioned so the shock is almost bottomed out when the stock bumpstop - visible above the axle in this shot - is compressed and the other wheel is at full droop. Worst-case scenario, of course. But there's a problem. When I assembled everything, I discovered that I only had about an inch of droop travel at my expected normal ride height. I've been spending so much effort on making sure I have lots of compression travel, and with my 5" long shock travel I assumed I'd have good droop. Nope.
Maybe my worst-case scenario was a little too worst-case. I'll have to do quite a bit of surgery to the stock wheel well to make that happen. Heck, I knew that already. Still, I do have an option. AFCO sells a replacement upper rod end that's an inch longer than the ones I have. This would cut an inch of my compression travel (would it be missed?) and give me another inch of droop. We'll see how things work when the car hits the road. For the time being, I'm just happy that I have suspension on three corners now!
tags: suspension |
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