Capri - Front Suspension 2

Today, I continued to dismantle the struts. I had a good look at the lower control arms & the RH side had a bit of play in it which may have been part of my problem. They separated from the struts pretty easily after a fair bit of WD40. The brake backing plates on the RH wheel was also a bit loose & to tighten these properly, I removed the brake rotors. I used the spring clamps to get the springs off but so far, I don’t seem to see anything really bad. Maybe all I need are some new rubber boots & two lower control arms. I just need to clean them up & give everything a coat of black paint.

 The springs went back onto the struts today (next day) but it took me quite a while to get the first one fitted. One end of the spring kept popping out of its groove as I compressed it. After applying a small clamp to keep it in place & then compressing the spring slowly, some good progress was made. The next fiddly bit was aligning the top of the strut correctly with the top cover. (See the photo). It is an oblong shape with two straight sides & two curved ends which may be hard to pick up in the picture. I had to clamp the strut, using a rag & pair of multigrips & then tighten the top nut. It took several goes to get it correct but you know when it is in the right place. I am still trying to locate a pair of lower control arms at a reasonable price & think I may be able to get some this week. The rubber boots for the tie rods ends were easily obtained.



(Click to enlarge)