Front Suspension

The front suspension on a Sumo consists of a double wishbone arrangement…………

Fitting bushes, tapering upright……..

Preparing the Parts

The top and bottom wishbones arrive in untreated mild steel and so will need to be painted to protect from corrosion and to make them look nice.

Here are the lower (left) and upper (right) wishbones in untreated

wishbones.JPG

Its best to throughly clean any parts before painting, this should be done by wire brushing any loose material or corrosion from them and giving a gentle go over with some emery cloth or similar.

Parts should be primed with a suitable metal primer before the paint is applied. Any metal primer is suitable.

Primed and ready for painting.

wishbonesprime.JPG

The final paint coat can be applied, common paints are Hammerite and POR15 Paint which is highly recommended.

Bushes

The front wishbones used rubber bushes which you will likely need to fit yourself into the wishbones. There are several ways to do this, you can get a large socket and a hammer and bang them in, use a hydraulic press, most garages will be able to do this for you for a few quid, or ask pilgrim to do it when you order the bits, they may charge you a couple of quid too.

The pilgrim supplied bushes are black rubber, standard corina parts, some builders choose to upgrade these to a harder material. Several companies make suitable replacements bushes, one such company is FloFlex, they do a ployurathane set of 4 for under £15. These poly bushes are far easier to fit than the rubber metal ones too.

The standard bushes look like this:

cortbush.jpg

Polybushes look like this: (not to scale ;))

Front%20Top%20Wishbone72dpi.JPG&w=150&h=150

Part number CRT45FRNTA, Polyflo wishbone bushes.
NOTE: Beware, Floflex bushes do not include the bonded outer shell, so you will find they are loose in the wishbone. Polyflex ones do, but they cost a small fortune! However, Den Tanner tells me he's getting Floflex to manufacture bushes specifically for the Sumo front suspension (April 2010). So give him a call if you need some.

Assembly

Add details of how to do this:
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At each end of all suspension bolts you should place a large flat washer, this will cushion the rubber of the bush, but to avoid squashing the rubber as you tighten you should place a smaller washer underneath to pack it, see diagram below:

packer.JPG

Suspension bolts using packing washer - shown in blue
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Note for Sierra donor users:
The upright on the sierra is slightly shorter than that of a granada, to allow for this a recent development has been the introduction of taller mushrooms to allow for this. These Mushrooms will prevent the top wishbone hitting the spring at full droop of the suspension and also improve overall geometry. See article on Self-Centring for more info on this area of the vehicle set up.
If you are building a Sierra based Sumo and do not have these mushrooms you should contact Pilgrim to discuss this.

Taller Sierra specific mushrooms next to standard Granada mushroom.

mushrooms.JPG

Assembly TIP: Make sure the long tube which the top wishbone bolt goes through has been drilled or filled out and some light grease applied to allow the bolt to move freely (no slack though), if its a tight fit it can bind up with the galvanizing and is extremely hard to get out again….trust me!!!

Front passenger side suspension viewed from front:

frontsus.JPG

Now viewed from above:
Note the orientation of the top wishbones to ensure the "upright" now leans backwards, this is necessary to induce caster angle which is vital for good handling and self centring. For more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_angle

frontsus2.JPG
frontsus99.jpg
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