EK JAY'S FB WAGON PROJECT (some color)

[rustysdungers]

Top wheels got my a week ago when I was in Ballarat I got 7"all round

[space ace]

Yep great wheels Jay,I got 4 15x7s recently as well probably for my gold EJ prem
Pete

[EK JAY]

yeah there a real classic looking wheel I reckon
they tick all the boxes
chrome
dish
old school look
I will be running ribbon red wall tyres on mine
I got the 6's so I could lower it a fair bit and still run wide'ish tyre's

[EK JAY]

some progress bit of painting shockys springs and the door I had to repaint also got the chasiss kit in diff
and front end in and the rack tack welded into place and a few other bits and pieces
photo's

[parisian62]

Great work Jay. Love the wheels too.

[Blacky]

What are you using for steering Jay ? Have you gone with a kit or making up your own ??

[EK JAY]

using standard length Lc Lj torana rack blacky and ht steering arms
it seems to fit ok just made up some brackets
as close to original torrie brackets as I could so looks factory
I will probably get some extensions made up from rack end to tierod as the tierod is fairly close
to being wound out as far as I would like and doesn't leave much room for adjustment so will make up a sleave type extension
threaded both ends and use the early type tierods eg hr/ht 11/16 on the tierod end and 9/16 on the rack end hope that makes sense

[SC00BB]

Looking good Jay

[EK JAY]

Thanks Scoobb

[EK283]

Looking Good Jay,

The only problem you may encounter with this type of steering mod is bump steer. What happens is when the car travels up and down the geometry goes out of whack and can send the car left or right without you wanting it to. The issue lies with the location of the pivot points at both the rack and inner lower wishbones. To get limited amount of bump steer the joints of the steering should be exactly the same distance apart as the inner pivot points of the lower wishbone. If they are different they will arc at different angles and either pull the toe of the wheels in or out as the car goes up and down. This is why the hadfield racks were shortened but the net result loss was turning circle.
Bump steer is never really perfect but the closer you can get the measurements the better the car will handle. Some engineers even request tests for this type of modification.
You can test this by jacking the car up and watching how the wheels pull in or out as the car is lifted. Tie some long pieces of timber on the wheels and measure the difference
Unfortunately the only way of getting the steering rack close is to shorten or measure every rack under the sun and pick the closest
fit.
Anyway food for thought whilst your at this stage of the build.

Regards Greg

[Mick]

[EK283]

Hi Jay,

Looks like there's proof in the pudding so to speak with the set up you have. Good one Mick its sometimes hard to get good feedback of mods someone else has done.
When I ditched the hadfield rack on mine I had spent hours researching, asking tons of questions, funny never really got anyone to say they were completely happy (maybe I asked the wrong people).
Like Mick said he didn't go fast, but I like to thats why I eventually chose the UC front end and rack.
To be completely honest with all the work thats required to fit it I sometimes wonder why I didn't just get a fabricated a arm front end, but where does it stop Ha Ha.
Anyway your doing a great job, the wagon looks cool.

Regards Greg

[Blacky]

The rack setup may be fine Mick - but it all depends on where the rack is located, the length of the rack , the length and angle of the steering arms etc. Theres a fair bit to consider to get a good setup , no tjust knocking up a couple of brackets and gluing it in there - a bloke I knew in Kalgoorlie put a Torana rack in his Customline without any clue of what he was doing , mounted the rack behind the crossmember , went to drive the car out of his shed , turned the wheel to the right and the car went left and hit the shed !!!!!

There is a book I have called chassis engineering , I bought it years ago for building speedway cars and it goes into great detail about how to set up front ends - is a very worthwile read if you are doing this sort of work.

[EK JAY]

Thanks guys
where the rack is mounted now it does have a very very small amount of bump steer did the bump steer check set up
by putting 2 sticks clamped to the brake disc pointing straight forward and lifting up the suspension to see if the stick moved in or out
it moved out a couple of mm wich is not alot once the lowered springs are in and the motor weight I will check it again
the pivot arms are close to the points on the rack not exactly in line but once the weight is on the car I think they will be even closer
pics of where the pivots are when the wheels are straight with no springs or motor weight

[Mick]