Rodger
True Classic
I was out for a test drive a couple of months ago as I was dialing in my suspension on my ’81 K20 swap. I had installed a set of the MWB Koni coilovers as part of the restomod, plus I was checking out a set of prototype front sway bar brackets that Doug Martin (@rx1900) had designed and sent me. Teaser photos…
The first photo shows the bar mounted and how it clears the cooling tubes. The second is a closer view of how Doug designed the mounting system. More on this in a future thread when Doug is ready. I already had a rear sway bar on the car, again, courtesy of an idea and design by Doug. The rear bar is from an older Acura and I know that Hussein used the same bar on his build on a suggestion from Doug.
The car was really handling nice. A firm but not harsh ride and very flat in the corners. I was carrying some speed through a hard, left hand sweeper and hit a quick dip in the road. As the suspension suddenly compressed, I heard a loud rub sound from the front left fender. I thought it was just some rubbing on the fender liner, but I drove more slowly home and this a what I found.
The tire sidewall was slightly cut but not bad. I was able to carefully bend the lip back and had some of the paint on the lip crack off, but the paint on the outside of the fender stayed there, even though it was slightly rippled. I knew it was no longer bonded to the fender, but at least it was all there with no pieces flaked off. I was nervous to even touch it. Its hard to see in the photo, but the rippled area is outlined here. I used a little touch up paint on the lip where the paint was gone.
In my neophyte ignorance of suspensions, I had never bothered to check fender clearance at various amounts of compression. The MWB Koni’s have a soft, polyurethane bump stop, more properly termed a spring aid, rather than a hard, traditional style rubber bump stop, and I just assumed that they were set-up for the correct amount of compression with no issues. As part of my build, I had upgraded my front brakes to the Allison Wilwood brake kit, which features a vented rotor that is thicker than the stock rotors. I had also used the 15” Autostrade wheels from Vick Auto that have a 15 mm offset. This combination put the outside of the tire (195/45) just barely inside the fender rim. Apparently, not quite enough! I had also installed the camber adjustment plates from MWB early on, before I had even decided to do a K20 swap and then subsequently added their Koni coilovers. Their coilovers, as well as the Vick ones, come with the upper mounting hole of the shock slotted, so that you can adjust the camber. Its not as easy as doing it with the camber plates, but it eliminates the cost of the plates, plus the labor of cutting a hole in the top of the shock towers to fit them.
After I calmed down about screwing up my paint job, I reached out to Doug, who has become a good friend, even if only by email, as he seems to know everything about cars and the X. He patiently gave me a tutorial on how suspensions work and how to check suspension travel. I took out the springs and checked how far the suspension would compress until it bottomed out. The tires hit the fender lip way before the top of the shock tube even came close to the bump stop. Not good. So now, I began the process of trying to shim down the bump stop so that it would be fully compressed without the spring and still have some tire clearance to the fender lip. This is where I found out how compressible the stops are and why they are considered spring aids. Basically, I had to have the stop already touching the top of the shock tube at normal ride height to avoid the tire hitting the fender when the stop fully compresses. With the camber plates mounted on the top of the shock tower, I found I was giving up a lot of the shock extension travel as well.
Even though all the photos I have seen of the camber plates are with them mounted on top of the tower, when you think about it, they seem like they were designed to be mounted underneath. The three mounting holes are threaded, so if you put the bolts down from the top, they have to be screwed all the way down through the plate, then you still need nuts and washers on the underside, so all of the suspension load is carried by the nuts. If you mount them this way, there is no obvious purpose for the threaded holes in the plates. You can screw the bolts up from the bottom to take advantage of the threaded holes, but then you have the extra threads of the bolts sticking up which looks kind of tacky. This way, all the suspension load would be on the bolt heads.
I decided to move the plates to underneath the shock towers. I wisely had my body shop weld in an extra thickness of metal under the top of the shock towers as a kind of built in Plaia plate. With the camber plates underneath, the bolts come down from the top and use the integral threads of the plates to hold them securely in place. Now, all the suspension load is spread out over the whole area of the plates. Makes much more sense to me. Of course, it does not look as pretty as having them on the top, but another advantage is that now I gained back some of the shock extension travel. Not sure if it matters or not, but my seat of the pants engineer hat liked it. Of course, that did nothing to change the stop riding on the top of the shock, but I was able to eliminate some of the stack of shims that I had before.
I took a drive with the suspension like that and found it to be really harsh, as one would expect from riding on the stops. I obviously needed to get back some suspension travel, so that meant either increasing the ride height and going to the off-road 4x4 look, changing back to the stock brakes, changing to different rims with a different offset, or rolling the fender lips. When I had the body work done, I had the body shop roll the front section of the lips as that is where my ’79 used to rub with my CD-30’s and 185/60-13’s. I never thought about doing the top of the fenders, because I never had a clearance issue there with that set-up. I was really nervous about rolling the lips with my new paint job, and especially since I had already cracked the paint with my mishap.
I started doing some research on how to roll fenders and watched a few YouTube videos on it. It seemed like the Eastwood roller was the weapon of choice and the price was not much more than all the eBay imitations, so I ordered one, although it was on backorder for about a month. My main concern was that all of the rollers that I looked at, including cheap eBay ones and the Eastwood one, all had a minimum length of 14”. This was going to be much too long to do an X, but I figured maybe I could modify it somehow.
As karma would have it, Doug had just posted about his find of some nice 14” tires online at a good price. He had some 14” Maserati Biturbo rims that he was using for his build, and so needed some tires. He ordered them, mounted them up but when he put them on the car, he found a similar issue with fender rim clearance. He was using the stock brakes and suspension, but the offset of his rims was only 6 mm, so that pushed his tires out quite a bit. He liked the stance but needed to do something about the fender lips as well. We had been communicating about my issues and he knew that I had an Eastwood roller on order. Never one to wait around when there is a new project to tackle, he found a practically identical fender roller at a local tool place and bought it to play with.
Of course, he found the same problem with the 14” length, but being the clever innovator that he is, out comes his chop saw and drill press. He had to open up the mounting holes a little for the 4x98 Fiat bolt pattern first. After several modifications and trials, he arrived at a nice, workable roller for the X. He had to do both his rears and fronts due to his offset, but I only needed to do my fronts, since I was still using the stock rear rotors. The rears are more challenging than the fronts since they are a double wall construction. The fronts are just single layer of sheet metal.
I went ahead and cancelled my order from Eastwood as it was still on backorder and Doug sent me his modified roller to play with. I took it over to my powder coater to make it look nicer. Doug had given it a new coat of rattle can paint, but by the time the postal service had gotten done slamming the box around, it was looking really scuffed up. Our plan was that once I was done with it, I would offer it out for rental to any forum member who wants to use it, so I wanted it to look nice. It would be a lot easier for me to handle the rental and shipping it, since I am in the US and he is in Canada, so shipping is faster and less expensive for me.
So now that I had the roller, I just had to get up the courage and find the time to try it. My advice is to watch a few YouTube videos as it is much easier to watch it being used, then to try and explain it. The key is to have a good heat gun and heat up the fender rim well, then keep it hot during the whole process. Some suggest using an infrared thermometer to get the fender to a good temperature (125-140 degrees F), but I just felt it with my hand. It should be hot where you can touch it for a couple of seconds. You don’t want to overdo it as you can bubble the paint. The heat does two things, softens the paint to reduce cracking, and heats the metal so it is more malleable.
I first removed the fender liner, then mounted the roller using three of your lug bolts/nuts and the cup washers that come with the roller. You just need to hand tighten the bolts/nuts.
I found that I had to remove the Wilwood calipers as otherwise, I could not rotate the roller forward enough. I found later that I could have used a spacer, but it was easy to just unbolt the caliper and get it out of my way. I wanted to blend in the section that the body shop had done with the rest of what I was going to do. Doug found that he did not need to remove the stock calipers. Use a jack to raise the hub so that the arc of the roller wheel follows as much as the fender lip as possible. You can’t do the whole fender all at once, but the more you can match the arc of each section, the better. You will need to play with the various adjustments to do all sections of the lip as desired. Start with the roller wheel just slightly angled to the lip. Don’t put too much of an angle on it to start, otherwise you can just push the fender outward. Move the lip upwards first, then add angle to the roller wheel as needed to push the lip more vertically to the desired position. Apparently, you can also use the roller to flare out the fender if you are after the slammed look. Remember, heat up the fender arch/lip first, then work the roller back and forth, adjusting the tension as needed, re-heat and then do some more, reheat and do more, etc. It really doesn’t too long but take your time until you get a feel for it. Again, the YouTube videos are very helpful.
More to come.
The first photo shows the bar mounted and how it clears the cooling tubes. The second is a closer view of how Doug designed the mounting system. More on this in a future thread when Doug is ready. I already had a rear sway bar on the car, again, courtesy of an idea and design by Doug. The rear bar is from an older Acura and I know that Hussein used the same bar on his build on a suggestion from Doug.
The car was really handling nice. A firm but not harsh ride and very flat in the corners. I was carrying some speed through a hard, left hand sweeper and hit a quick dip in the road. As the suspension suddenly compressed, I heard a loud rub sound from the front left fender. I thought it was just some rubbing on the fender liner, but I drove more slowly home and this a what I found.
The tire sidewall was slightly cut but not bad. I was able to carefully bend the lip back and had some of the paint on the lip crack off, but the paint on the outside of the fender stayed there, even though it was slightly rippled. I knew it was no longer bonded to the fender, but at least it was all there with no pieces flaked off. I was nervous to even touch it. Its hard to see in the photo, but the rippled area is outlined here. I used a little touch up paint on the lip where the paint was gone.
In my neophyte ignorance of suspensions, I had never bothered to check fender clearance at various amounts of compression. The MWB Koni’s have a soft, polyurethane bump stop, more properly termed a spring aid, rather than a hard, traditional style rubber bump stop, and I just assumed that they were set-up for the correct amount of compression with no issues. As part of my build, I had upgraded my front brakes to the Allison Wilwood brake kit, which features a vented rotor that is thicker than the stock rotors. I had also used the 15” Autostrade wheels from Vick Auto that have a 15 mm offset. This combination put the outside of the tire (195/45) just barely inside the fender rim. Apparently, not quite enough! I had also installed the camber adjustment plates from MWB early on, before I had even decided to do a K20 swap and then subsequently added their Koni coilovers. Their coilovers, as well as the Vick ones, come with the upper mounting hole of the shock slotted, so that you can adjust the camber. Its not as easy as doing it with the camber plates, but it eliminates the cost of the plates, plus the labor of cutting a hole in the top of the shock towers to fit them.
After I calmed down about screwing up my paint job, I reached out to Doug, who has become a good friend, even if only by email, as he seems to know everything about cars and the X. He patiently gave me a tutorial on how suspensions work and how to check suspension travel. I took out the springs and checked how far the suspension would compress until it bottomed out. The tires hit the fender lip way before the top of the shock tube even came close to the bump stop. Not good. So now, I began the process of trying to shim down the bump stop so that it would be fully compressed without the spring and still have some tire clearance to the fender lip. This is where I found out how compressible the stops are and why they are considered spring aids. Basically, I had to have the stop already touching the top of the shock tube at normal ride height to avoid the tire hitting the fender when the stop fully compresses. With the camber plates mounted on the top of the shock tower, I found I was giving up a lot of the shock extension travel as well.
Even though all the photos I have seen of the camber plates are with them mounted on top of the tower, when you think about it, they seem like they were designed to be mounted underneath. The three mounting holes are threaded, so if you put the bolts down from the top, they have to be screwed all the way down through the plate, then you still need nuts and washers on the underside, so all of the suspension load is carried by the nuts. If you mount them this way, there is no obvious purpose for the threaded holes in the plates. You can screw the bolts up from the bottom to take advantage of the threaded holes, but then you have the extra threads of the bolts sticking up which looks kind of tacky. This way, all the suspension load would be on the bolt heads.
I decided to move the plates to underneath the shock towers. I wisely had my body shop weld in an extra thickness of metal under the top of the shock towers as a kind of built in Plaia plate. With the camber plates underneath, the bolts come down from the top and use the integral threads of the plates to hold them securely in place. Now, all the suspension load is spread out over the whole area of the plates. Makes much more sense to me. Of course, it does not look as pretty as having them on the top, but another advantage is that now I gained back some of the shock extension travel. Not sure if it matters or not, but my seat of the pants engineer hat liked it. Of course, that did nothing to change the stop riding on the top of the shock, but I was able to eliminate some of the stack of shims that I had before.
I took a drive with the suspension like that and found it to be really harsh, as one would expect from riding on the stops. I obviously needed to get back some suspension travel, so that meant either increasing the ride height and going to the off-road 4x4 look, changing back to the stock brakes, changing to different rims with a different offset, or rolling the fender lips. When I had the body work done, I had the body shop roll the front section of the lips as that is where my ’79 used to rub with my CD-30’s and 185/60-13’s. I never thought about doing the top of the fenders, because I never had a clearance issue there with that set-up. I was really nervous about rolling the lips with my new paint job, and especially since I had already cracked the paint with my mishap.
I started doing some research on how to roll fenders and watched a few YouTube videos on it. It seemed like the Eastwood roller was the weapon of choice and the price was not much more than all the eBay imitations, so I ordered one, although it was on backorder for about a month. My main concern was that all of the rollers that I looked at, including cheap eBay ones and the Eastwood one, all had a minimum length of 14”. This was going to be much too long to do an X, but I figured maybe I could modify it somehow.
As karma would have it, Doug had just posted about his find of some nice 14” tires online at a good price. He had some 14” Maserati Biturbo rims that he was using for his build, and so needed some tires. He ordered them, mounted them up but when he put them on the car, he found a similar issue with fender rim clearance. He was using the stock brakes and suspension, but the offset of his rims was only 6 mm, so that pushed his tires out quite a bit. He liked the stance but needed to do something about the fender lips as well. We had been communicating about my issues and he knew that I had an Eastwood roller on order. Never one to wait around when there is a new project to tackle, he found a practically identical fender roller at a local tool place and bought it to play with.
Of course, he found the same problem with the 14” length, but being the clever innovator that he is, out comes his chop saw and drill press. He had to open up the mounting holes a little for the 4x98 Fiat bolt pattern first. After several modifications and trials, he arrived at a nice, workable roller for the X. He had to do both his rears and fronts due to his offset, but I only needed to do my fronts, since I was still using the stock rear rotors. The rears are more challenging than the fronts since they are a double wall construction. The fronts are just single layer of sheet metal.
I went ahead and cancelled my order from Eastwood as it was still on backorder and Doug sent me his modified roller to play with. I took it over to my powder coater to make it look nicer. Doug had given it a new coat of rattle can paint, but by the time the postal service had gotten done slamming the box around, it was looking really scuffed up. Our plan was that once I was done with it, I would offer it out for rental to any forum member who wants to use it, so I wanted it to look nice. It would be a lot easier for me to handle the rental and shipping it, since I am in the US and he is in Canada, so shipping is faster and less expensive for me.
So now that I had the roller, I just had to get up the courage and find the time to try it. My advice is to watch a few YouTube videos as it is much easier to watch it being used, then to try and explain it. The key is to have a good heat gun and heat up the fender rim well, then keep it hot during the whole process. Some suggest using an infrared thermometer to get the fender to a good temperature (125-140 degrees F), but I just felt it with my hand. It should be hot where you can touch it for a couple of seconds. You don’t want to overdo it as you can bubble the paint. The heat does two things, softens the paint to reduce cracking, and heats the metal so it is more malleable.
I first removed the fender liner, then mounted the roller using three of your lug bolts/nuts and the cup washers that come with the roller. You just need to hand tighten the bolts/nuts.
I found that I had to remove the Wilwood calipers as otherwise, I could not rotate the roller forward enough. I found later that I could have used a spacer, but it was easy to just unbolt the caliper and get it out of my way. I wanted to blend in the section that the body shop had done with the rest of what I was going to do. Doug found that he did not need to remove the stock calipers. Use a jack to raise the hub so that the arc of the roller wheel follows as much as the fender lip as possible. You can’t do the whole fender all at once, but the more you can match the arc of each section, the better. You will need to play with the various adjustments to do all sections of the lip as desired. Start with the roller wheel just slightly angled to the lip. Don’t put too much of an angle on it to start, otherwise you can just push the fender outward. Move the lip upwards first, then add angle to the roller wheel as needed to push the lip more vertically to the desired position. Apparently, you can also use the roller to flare out the fender if you are after the slammed look. Remember, heat up the fender arch/lip first, then work the roller back and forth, adjusting the tension as needed, re-heat and then do some more, reheat and do more, etc. It really doesn’t too long but take your time until you get a feel for it. Again, the YouTube videos are very helpful.
More to come.
