Body Lean

[opeldean]

I just spoke to 'flipper" on the phone, he is the only opeler to have seen my suspension before today.

his advise:
1- put it back together the same way, make sure the perch is the same on the left as the right( probabaly the outter holes)
2- flip the spring ( put the right onto the left side...to account for the 34 years of load by its driver)...he thought the spring was "flipable"
3- make sure upper ball joints bolt back up the same way as the 2 bolts are offset and you can be off 180 degrees and your wheels will be leaning.

4- probabbly best not to move perch inward to bring left side up, he thought if i was lucky...it might fix it self by replacing the compressed spring eyes and compressed ball joints.

5- you may have to get it all together..then go back and move a perch to adjust body lean

[Old Hippie]

Dean, did you feel any rough or sloppy movement in the ball joints? They'd be shot for sure if you did as good ball joints don't move by hand well at all. I couldn't hazard a guess about turning the leaf. I will say this: clamp the spring in the center to a level beam (sq. tube, small I-beam, etc) above the floor and measure the distance from each end to the floor. It's a quick down and dirty test to see if the leaf is more compressed on one side. It won't tell you if one side is weaker though. A shop could do a weight deflection test for you. Just my 2c's.

[opeldean]

we ran into a problem this am. My lower bushings are too small for the a arm.

apparently my 70 A arms have been changed to late model.

1-here is chads solution..has anyone heard of this?

burn out the rubber of the old ,early bushings,...then press them on the new late poly...seems like it was almost made that way.."as the shoulder is small on the A arm anyway...according to Chad"

2- upper A arm set for neg camber..is this correct?

Advise

[baz]

a nice fix i like it

[flipper]

I would recommend trading in those for the right ones, and check your other side to see what size it is. It is worth the wait from ogts to know its right. Different size lower a arms seems to be common as gts get older. To anyone replacing their a arm bushings, check diameter of both sides before ordering. Or, order both sides and return the ones you do not need with ogts permission of course. Just my $.02

[nobody]

There was a reason Opel went to a larger diameter. The smaller ones had a tendency to flex and this was thier solution. Yes the rubber has to be removed first. It's the inner diameter that was changed.

[opeldean]

ok, burning out the bushing is in the instructions.I am learning.

Gil (and the instructions) said
1-the metal sleeve is a part of the lower A arm,,,it should of stayed there...he said tack weld it.
Gil said:
2- dont use neg camber..thats for sport spring only.

3- moving perch will affect ride height ,but not not enough to select the neg camber position of the upper ball joint.

problems i ran into:
i was short a spring eye pair, even tho 2 members on the site (svopel and tking) had sent me spares thru rush mail.(thanks for trying) ..but they were for sport springs which will not interchange with a reg spring eye..sport spring has a smaller eye...so we used tr6 rubber bushings...1/2 on each side for balance...had to improvise a bit as its all apart in a shop .

i filmed what i could and I hope to get I can get back for the reassembly...passenger side upper ball joint was rusted and loose..even rattled...old spring eyes bushings were oval and split..i cant believe how much better this car is going to be...

[opeldean]

imissed the spring install with the video camera

couldnt get away from my work , but work pays

for opel stuff

chad is going to show me how to align it tomorrow.. i wil be able to take photos or video..


in the shop...car was level! groans and squeeks are gone..tomorrow pm i will be driving her

chad moved spring perch to outboard hole on each side, spring was also flipped

ball joints are set with neg camber,chad said he wants to see how it measures up tomorrow

[opeldean]

well today is a big opel day for me. no body lean. I have driven it 20 mlies. we checked toe in,camber,castor..its about right...only thing right wheel is showing positive camber of +2....i think the manual says 1/2 degree positive..although ball joints are set for neg camber in the sport spring position...we will recheck it after the suspension settles in

i will try to get photos..camera card malfunctioned this am.

car drives great. it feels like a new car..oddly enough...it feels softer ,cushier ,and very sedan like. A lot of big differences, car is level and you really notice it when you drive. Another thing is how easy the steering wheel turns...has a buttery ,well lubed feel. no squeaks or groans...vey soft and supple.

cambor,castor, toe in...chad has some simple tools to check this.

the car drives show room new, when Truman drives it next month on our way to carlisle..i will let him vouch for me...as he has driven it before repairs.
( we are not bringing the car to carlise tho, as there isnt enough oil in kuwait to get us there)

next project...start working on the engine rebuild that is part way


if I had it to different he is what i would do, (if you want to do more of the project yourself...and still be safe,especially if you dont have good equipment or good tools or want to drop a car on yourself trying to get off that last rusted nut on the spring retainer-crosspiece)

i wish i had bought some salvage upper and lower A arms. get these painted ahead of time and disassembled. get the ball joints installed and get the new bushings in..take your time. then i would take it to a shop...have them decompress the spring, swap in the new arms, having the arms ready to go,jacking with the A arms is over 1/2 of the shop time. also have all the needed grade 8 bolts ready, as the shop will probably not have these ready)

if you are not going to do that, at least order a double set of A arm bushings, old and late model,,,so that the car is not apart and you are back ordered from your opel dealer....maybe your" A arms are not the same year as your car?"

also: i have been assured,that there really is nothing challenging for a shop to do this. the folks that did this said " not hard at all"..

from what i saw...working at a a pace..if your A arms are ready..the whole job could be done in 2 hours by someone with good tools( and who can find their tools)...4 hours at most..if rusted bolts were encountered.

my mechanic spent about 5- 6 hours on the job..i will have to ask him

all in all...unbelievable...it rides/steers like new..

[opelgtmaster3]

i had the same thing wrong with mine. all i did to fix it was change out the long bar in the back right behind the rear axle. the car is level now

[davegt27]

cool Monza 4 tip exhaust

I still have mine but boy is it restrictive


davegt27

[namba209]

Dean, here's the pic of how you can drill the jam nut for safety wire on the tie rods we discussed last nite in the chat room. You will also have to drill another hole for the safety wire to terminate at from the nut. Maybe in the casting the tie rod screws into. In retrospect, as I was searching for the bolt, I stumbled, literally, across some of the thin steel plate I made the new hood seal from. I do believe you could make some locking tabs out of that material easily. Just a thought.

[opeldean]

RON: thanks for the tip
dAVE: these arent Monza/pacesetter resonated tips...just straight thru tips i found on ebay, although i thinkk i need the resonation, i am a little loud...do you want to swaP?

[soybean]

davegt27,Bucky, here is a site that I found that had the monza tips. http://www.autopn.com/autoparts/perf...aust_tips.html
My question is did you mount yours to the original tips, just cut off? I noticed coming back from Charlotte the other weekend, mine is kinda loud at 70 going down the interstate. I just thought about cutting off the tips and putting on the Dual tips with the original rear muffler. Then again I was wondering how restrictive that would be. Thanks, Jarrell

[davegt27]

Back in the day JC Whitney used to sell all kinds of crazy stuff

one was the Chrome Header that did not fit. the other was a Monza exhaust

the problem with the Monza 4 Tip was it was designed wrong and was very restrictive

Rally Bob and others called Monza told what the problem was so they could fix it.

as soon as i herd the problem was fixed i order the "Opel GT Monza exhaust"

this was a rear resonator made just for the Opel GT

later while i was autocrossing i hit one of those big cones and ripped my Monza 4 tip right off (noticed a power increase after that) i never reinstalled it

the 4 Tip is over in my storage unit maybe i can get a Pic, I thought i tripped over it last week

Davegt27

[bosco]

I just put these exhaust tips on mine......the size worked well, they look good and they seem to have slightly reduced the sound. They only stay red for about a week, or less, which was fine with me. I paid about $19.00 each.

http://www.hedman.com/pages/hedmanmain.html

[mark gibson]

If the car has the engine in it this is NOT a difficult task. Make sure the lower control arm is on a jackstand and bearing the weight of the vehicle. remove ball joint thru bolt and sperate it from the steering knuckle. you can then jack the car from the frame behind the wheel opening and slowly raise the car this will remove the spring tension and the spring can then be removed. Install it in the reverse order. New springs can be purchased from any spring manufacturer. They will need the spring to match it. Always change springs in pairs to insure spring rate from side to side. Check the pockets for wear when these springs are removed.

[opeldean]

i took out my cut down sportwagon springs. the car was too high in the back,even with a loop or two cut out.the sportwagon spring ended up short(w/o tension) and too tall (with compression) . if the car is jacked up, the short spring would come off its spring hat seat...then when the car rested on it..it was too tall in the back..

i went back to my stock rear spring.car looks better, now that my front end has been rebuilt.

car is awesome!

[jordan]

would anyone know the ID and the OD of the bushings used on a 70 (early) front suspension?

[kwilford]

I am unsure of the inner diameter, but they are all the same. The sleeve thickness, and hence outer diameter, changed in 1972. Read the last post at:
http://opelgt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=398

Originally Posted by kwilford I have recently learned that the early model Kadett and GT front suspension is especially prone to front end shimmy at highway speeds. How do I know this, you ask? I am rebuilding my '71 GT front suspension, and when I ordered new front A-arm bushings, OGTS asked if I had the newer, heavier-wall lower bushing inner sleeves, or the older thin-wall sleeves. In 1972, Opel finally recognized the design flaw, and their solution was to make the inner sleeve wall thicker (the old inner sleeve is 0.710 inch in outer diameter, the newer style is 0.745 inch; the difference is entirely in the wall thickness of the sleeve, which makes it stiffer). So if you are replacing the old lower rubber bushings with polyurethane bushings, you need to know which inner sleeve your car has.

[opeldean]

this is a clayflex bushing, it says sab 935 on the end.
someone asked about this,as ogts is out of stock.i lost their name, i dont know who needed these. i got them today from chad.
I have 4 which i believe will work. they came from "victoria british in Lenexa ks."..if anyone needs an set ...i got 4 for shipping costs.
check the size as these were unmarked in a box where mine came from in the shop.

you will need to grind the end.

[jordan]

Has anyone some across a strange problem with the ogts poly spring eye bushings where it crushes the bushing within it's confines as the bushings are not fully cylindrical, it's OD has two flat spots on it. The spring is squishing the bushings towards the flats, though this is the way to install them (flats are perpendicular to the spring) Will it stop doing this once there is a preload? Why in the world are the spring eye bushings not fully cylindrical?

[markandson]

Jordan,
I don't remember if mine had a flat spot or not, since I put the front end together 2 years ago, but I do remember that I had no problem with assembly, and that there was nothing unusual that happened during my assembly process.
If you are using that lowering spring that I sold you, that might be the issue, I am not sure you can use the stock bushings in it.

[jordan]

I made some little thin bushing sleeves out of .016" aluminium and the bushings fit snug in the spring eye after that. I can not think of any specific problem with the spring that would cause this problem, I will call ogts on tuesday and possibly gil can explain if this is how they should be. Is polyurathane machineable? Could delrin or polyethelene be used in the spring eyes? I may make my own and then there wont be a problem, But I know I am not impressed with the large flat spots on the bushings that without a reason seem stupid.

[GTJIM]

The eyes in the ends of the top lef of the front spring are not round but strangely squashed out of round. The original rubber bush is almost square - I can only guess that Opel made them this way to prevent the rubber bush rotating in the eye - the bush has to 'twist' rather than turn. I am sure it was designed that way by Opel.
Thus, when Poly bushes are used they need to be out of round too - and only rotate on the inner sleeve that slides over the bolt.