The Battleship,Williams, sentenced to death!

[magnumpi]

So i'll start with the lows, if you've been seeing my various questions dotted about the board you may well know that i've been lowering the back of my car.
However with me being me things don't always exactly go smoothly nor to plan.

The day started badly with this:




Which intself doesn't look too bad, but the car decided to fall sideways off of it while i was trying to get it high enough to put the axle stands under, gladly i wasn't crushed , injured or horrificcly mamed, but my car didn't get off quite as luckily

This is the resulting damage:








However about 2" or so futher down the cill is this, so it needs replacing anyway, but for now i'll just bend it back and tack weld it back together:






So that was all within 5 mins of starting the job, usually by now i would have had enough and call it a day, but no i thought i've started surely it can't get any worse than that.

So i use an appropriate jack i.e a proper one, i won't be using a scissor one ever again, and got the axle stands in, wheels off etc ready to remove the driveshaft hexbolts. The first one i started on felt like it was rounding off, not a good start, so i liberally coated them all in WD40, let it soak for a bit before carrying on.

So they've soaked for a bit and i start again and this happened:





Obviously Halfrauds standard Allenkeys weren't up for the job so i found a proper 6mm socket set style one and carried on. Although they were all SUPER tight i managed to get them all out until i got to the very last one and it seemed a bit tighter than the others, eventually, twang, it loosened but only due to it snapping.

Can you see whats wrong with this pic





I then spent the next hour and a bit drilling it out, cursing it and getting rather annoyed, i did eventually manage to get the stump out and slice my finger open nicely on a bit of swarf.

Right now just the easy bit of undoing the spring plate bolts. Started on the drivers side, first 3 came out without too much hassle as i had expected, onto the last one with the big washer/spacer type thing underneath it. Should have expected it really with how my day had gone so far, 17mm's on top and bottom then, yep, snap, gggrrrrr! I managed to put the washer bit in my vice and with a massive wrench just about got it out. Next i started on the other side, exactly the same thing, the first 3 came out no problem, then the last snapped again, great! An easy job turned into a bitch due to multiples of snappage.





Anyway that was the lows, now onto the highs. Everything was undone ready to have the blocks put in, so after greasing the spacer plate things i wacked them in and put it all back together, this was the easiest bit of the day. I've yet to re attatch the drive shafts as i wanted to get an idea of how low it was going to be, so put it back on it's wheels. Now to me it looks as though the back is lower than the front, which is what i didn't want , so do i chop half inch off of the blocks, or bring the front down a bit more with an angle grinder?

The weird thing being if i measure from the bottom of the cill to the floor, the back is 1/4" higher than the front, but visually it looks to be the other way round? What do you guys reckon?

Before:




After:




Before:




After:











Lastly i deffinately need to get the arches rolled as you can see by this pic, the tread sticks out passed the inner arch lip, yeah i could just get different tyres and get some "tuck and poke" but think it looks gay quite frankly, i like old school fat tyres.

[foggyjames]

Looks good bud. Pain....but worthwhile pain!

cheers

James

[volvosneverdie]

Well done man.
Give it a few K to settle I recon.
Looks ABOUT level to me. front maybe a BIT higher, but negelable.

Looks mint all round man, thats for sure.
My wellers were a similar offset, and frightened me to bits.

Roll em.

[magnumpi]

Cheers guys, no pain no gain and all that

Well i'll put the driveshafts back in, problem being it's still not driveable as it's got no loom on it at the moment, but at least it gives me a bit of time to get the arches rolled before i get it rolling again.

[Chris_C]

All the rally spec Escorts run low backs and silly high fronts

The leaf to axle plate 4 always snap in that bar/spacer piece too She does look good though mate

[magnumpi]

All the rally spec Escorts run low backs and silly high fronts

The leaf to axle plate 4 always snap in that bar/spacer piece too She does look good though mate

Haha i had thought exactly that myself, Mk2's always look to be nose high, but i pressumed thats because you normally see "in action" shots , so the power is pushing the front up, i'll leave it as is for now and see how it drives, feels.

Ah fair enough, i thought i'd just been unlucky as it looks like it had never been apart before.

[tommysb]

Mine is definitely lower at the back...I'm in no rush to drop the front, as I think it'll help in getting the power down when I get the new engine in...Intuitively that seems to make sense, but I could be wrong.

[SteveP]

Good work in the end... it had it's pitfalls but judging by those pics it's been worth it, looks great lowered

[Speedy88]

man, what is with those grapes?

[magnumpi]

man, what is with those grapes?

I just saw them in a mates back garden and thought i've got a good place i can hang those

Or it's what people in their posh cars get when i whip them off the lights in an old Volvo, sour grapes

[volvosneverdie]

man, what is with those grapes?

Or it's what people in their posh cars get when i whip them off the lights in an old Volvo, sour grapes

Eat my grapes!!

Supermint.

Grapes ftw.

[jtbo]

Grapes.... from small pic it look like giant spider eggs

[kds19]

you have to remember though that your front archs are a larger diameter than the rear slightly to allow the wheels not to hit when steering so your car will be about level but just the rear arch sits lower so it looks as if the front is higher
look at the swage line to the front arch then follow it to the rear arch and you will find the rear is a tad lower

[magnumpi]

Yeah thats true, and has been noted, it just kind of looks wrong. Should stop moaning though really and get it out on the road and see what it looks like out there as the driveway has a slight lean on it.

[magnumpi]

I'm genuniely starting to think either me or my car is jinxed!
Also annoyingly my PC is being soooooo slow i can't upload any pictures which i wanted to do.

Well after the HG going , me repairing it, followed by the dodgy electrics straight after, and a failed attempt by an auto electrician to fix it, plus it falling off the jack etc i'm begining to wonder. Anyway Adam the official Volvo/Renault guru, had a look at the loom for me and sorted out the problem, so i fitted it early Saturday morning.

Went to start it, crank, crank- then nothing but a tiny cloud of smoke coming out of the starter motor! Rush down to GSF get a new starter, wack it on, try again and it's perfect, eveything just seems to be breaking systematically

Feeling happy it was sorted i went for a Curry and a few beers with some mates (left the Volvo at home).
Next day i think i'll take it out for a drive, see how much difference the lowered back end makes, as predicted, heavy grinding entering/exiting the drive, and scrapes most speedbumps. So far so good.

That is until i return home from work this evening to see the Volvo on the drive sitting on the wonk! By this i mean the drivers side rear corner has sunk, the arch now sits a smidgen over the tyre whereas the passenger side gap seems to have increased. Everything is in place as it should be, springs, blocks, no nuts or bolts have come undone.

So i'm taking a guess that the rear shock has most likely collapsed? Are these adjustable Koni's designed for lowered cars, they can't have been on the car more than 6months