The rebuilt upper wishbones were fitted. Note that the upper wishbones on a MK11 have to be rebuilt onto the upper fulcrum before the fulcrum is fitted to the chassis due to not being able to fit the left wishbone over the fulcrum when fitted due to a chassis support arm.
The vertical link and new upper ball joint could then be installed to connect upper and lower wishbones. To ensure that when the suspension is in the correct position when standing on the wheels the suspension was set up so that the upper bump stop is not resting on the chassis. I left a few centimetres gap.
Now the bit that I have been dreading, compressing the new spring and fitting the spring pan. I have created a home made spring compressor as traditional spring compressors will not fit. It's a Jensen, why would traditional tools work!.
The home made compressor is made up of an inch thick aluminium disk that fits in the underside of the spring pan. The disk has a 20mm hole in the centre in which a 16mm high tensile threaded bar can pass through the inside of the spring and , using 2 M24 nuts, locked off at the top using the shock mounting hole.
There is another M24 under the disk that can be would up the threaded bar and thus compressing the spring.
To guide the pan into the right position on the lower wishbone I used two 6" 3/8 Bolts in the front left and back right spring pan fixing holes into the upper wishbone.
What followed was 30 minutes of slowly winding up the spring hoping that the nut doesn't lock on or de-thread the bar! Surprisingly it worked rather well and as soon as the pan was close enough to the wishbone the 4 free fixing bolts were fitted and used to secure the pan. The guide bolts were removed and the remaining two bolts were fitted. These bolts were then tightened slowly a bit at a time working around the pan until all tightened correctly.
The spring compressor could then be loosened off. At this point the whole suspension initially lowers until the bump stop is resting on the chassis. The suspension will rise when the wheel is on and is taking the weight of the car.
Time for pictures...
Front suspension with spring installed
Shock installed
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