Ground Clearance - It's A Good Thing

Firstly the titanium skid plates are fitted on both trailing arms, painted & ready to fend off anything that comes their way. Also the newly refurbed Protech shocks are back on the car, with the the brass spacers my lovely girlfriend re-drilled on my Brother's lathe. They had been bored to 1/2", so when fitted to a 1/2" bolt they seized on just enough to stop the bolt coming out at all, meaning I had to take the trailing arm off the car & put the whole thing in a vice to get some proper pressure on them. Shouldn't be a problem now they're 13mm bore (sigh).

Also getting done this week, was the Panhard rod. It's been a bone of contention since I bough the car. Jeremy Phillips designed a beautifully elegant Panhard rod chassis mount, a previous owner decided they knew better & welded on an ugly fork fitting which hit the ground at regular intervals. I suspect this is the reason the car had REALLY stiff springs on the back. I'd already shortened it by an inch, but it was still catching the ground at full bump. A look from the side showed it was bent & ground off at an angle by asphalt the length & breadth of the UK. It was only a matter of time before it either got ripped out of the car, or started grinding away the rod end.

It looked like it might be easy, there was already a big bolt through the original hole in the rear bulkhead & the bracket - presumably someone didn't entirely trust their welding. All I needed to do was put a 2degree bend in the Panhard rod & bolt it on as JP had intended. No, the big bolt that came out looked different because it was an M12. The reason for that was because the 1/2" hole in the bracket & the 1/2" hole in the chassis didn't quite align. There wasn't space to drill or ream it from the inside of the car & I didn't want to start from the outside because the cutter would be pulled into line with the 3/8" thick bracket.

I called into the fantastic Margnor Fasteners & bought a 1/2" UNF bolt 6 1/2" long & took it straight to my Brother's, where I turned the head off the bolt & turned it down to 12mm & cut an M12 thread on it, I now has a shaft with a 1/2"parallel section for the rose joint, a 1/2"UNF thread on that end, a step & a 12mm dia section for the chassis & an M12 thread on the other. It fitted perfectly, so I cut the horrible fork bracket off & bolted the Panhard rod up. At full droop, there was 1/4" clearance between the Panhard rod & the diff & everything lined up nicely. As a bonus there's much more clearance around the shock absorber - it was a bit close to the old bracket.

The car is now back on it's wheels, but looks a little high. I'll leave it a day or two to settle before I start adjusting things.