The 360 lowering saga

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Stavros
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The 360 lowering saga

Post by Stavros » 03 Apr 2007 08:39 pm

Bloody cars, nothings ever easy!

Spend te last few evenings and last saturday daytime lowering the super rust bucket that is the 1984 360 GLEI Saloon.

First the rear, which was easy barring one one huge issue, getting the bastid driveshafts off the hubs.

Not only are were they held on with normal bolts rather than allen key ones as expected, but they were shagged, rusty n worn, so had a day of angle grinding and pissing about with rounded nuts.
Barring getting them out it wouldve been a 1hour job, but took all day, lol.

The fronts were just as much of a pain, if not worse, and again because every bolt was old n fooked.

One thing i found to do (handy hint time chaps) is to replace the 2 nuts n bolts that hold the hub to the arm with new ones about twice as long.
They dont catch on anything and make it tons easier to line up with minimum grief.

Even drilling the spring cups so i could put jubilees thru em to hold the springs was a nightmare as the bloody shocker on one wide had been welded too! :shock:
Badly, dead messy, but made drilling thru the cup next to impossible, very vey long job.

After all the grief i had (drivers side front took nigh on 8hours for whats potentially a 1hours job if all goes well!) i was just about to finish, putting the final bolt on the passenger side track rod end and...

Its fooked :roll:

I hammered it too much to get it out (before i found the pullers and did it easy, doh) and squashed the end a bit it seems, meaning the bolt wont catch the thread.

Went n wasted 30quid on a rethreading kit n was no good as couldnt even get them to catch.

Looks like i need a new track/tie rod end now, and they always been a complete get to remove on every other car ive tried it on, so im expecting the worst on this pile of iron oxide...

I take it they still available? :?:

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SteveP
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Post by SteveP » 03 Apr 2007 08:54 pm

Ouch, not much fun! You can get around taking the driveshafts off though by angle grinding the bolts down that wont come out past the driveshaft and then placing the new bolt the other way round... which is what we did on Hugh's 360 when fitting a second rear leaf
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classicswede
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Post by classicswede » 03 Apr 2007 09:29 pm

Just to cheer you up it should only be a 1 to 2 hour job :lol:

The track rods are avilable. They are not expensive from the steeler tbh and proper Volvo ones last much better.
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Post by jtbo » 03 Apr 2007 09:42 pm

That sound like old car that is not driven hard at any point of it's life and thus no suspension parts have been renewed in civilized time phase, quite typical to quite big % of cars in here, working with them is really annoying as you need cold/hot (acetylene torch, warm bolt to 1300C and then coll with ice/icewater/liquid hydrogen or something) treatment for every bloody bolt.

I did try to get heat collector from exhaust manifold out in other day and could not do that because bolts just were too stuck in it, got one out easily with other managed to round corners, seemed to be that 12mm was too small and 13mm was eventually too big, don't know what bolt it had, then leaved that alone, my car won't need intake air pre heating then, can't get bothered until I get proper tools for the job, maybe I look it again after a year or so when I have perhaps some better possibilities ;)
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Stavros
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Post by Stavros » 03 Apr 2007 09:43 pm

yup, it was clear as i did it that i couldve done it all in maybe 3hours at most even on a very cold driveway.

but the oxide-mobile didnt want me to have an easy time of it.

hows peoples experiences of fitting new track rods been? i have nightmareish visions of it all ready.

strangely enough i just remembered theres an indipendant volvo specialist about 10mins drive from me, last time i went there a few years ago, they had what, if i remember right, was a silver 262C outside... 8)

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Post by classicswede » 03 Apr 2007 09:58 pm

Best thing is to push the track rod in place and use a jack to lock it in. One you have cracked it open its a peice of piss.
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Post by classicswede » 03 Apr 2007 10:00 pm

BTW fasted way to fit the drift spings is to only undo top strut top and arb link. Cut the original spring in half - the drift spring will then fit in withour removing the strut.
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Stavros
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Post by Stavros » 03 Apr 2007 10:16 pm

classicswede wrote:Best thing is to push the track rod in place and use a jack to lock it in. One you have cracked it open its a peice of piss.
youve lost me there mate :?

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Post by pettaw » 03 Apr 2007 10:57 pm

I think he's got a little confused, he's talking about the best way to reinstall the track rods onto the hub, but I think you wanna know how to get the things off the steering rack end yes?

Ok you need lots of heat :P Get the thing very very hot, like 2 minutes with a blowlamp on the track rod end itself. then it should undo nice and easy. There should be a squarey end which you should be able to hold with a spanner whilst you undo break the locknut free. A pair of long spanners should do it fine if you've got it hot enough. Once you get it moving, spray some WD-40 carefully into the threads as they undo, but be careful, because there will be a LOT of smoke if you've got it hot properly.

I've not encountered rusty and knackered rear halfshaft nuts before, they're normally just so caked in grease and muck that you can't get the sockets on them properly, and yes, 360s do have proper bolts rather than allen bolt jobbies that 340s have. Done up to a higher torque too, and loctited in, to cope with the extra power :D

Stavros
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Post by Stavros » 03 Apr 2007 11:56 pm

cheers for the info about the track rods, perfect info.

and the halfshaft bolts were caked in crap, but dry crap, and scraped that lot off beforehand and still had a nightmare as most the bolt metal came with it, lol.

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Post by jtbo » 04 Apr 2007 12:28 pm

So any progress today? Angle grinder have been hot all day? :D

You are going to fit steering track from Sunbeam for faster steering anyway, aren't you?
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Stavros
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Post by Stavros » 04 Apr 2007 01:31 pm

jtbo wrote:So any progress today? Angle grinder have been hot all day? :D

You are going to fit steering track from Sunbeam for faster steering anyway, aren't you?
Unfortunatley im a automotive journalist, so today ive been mostly writing about cars rather than messing about with the pile of scrap.

Ive not even had time to order a new balljoint yet, hopefully later.

Angle grinder? Steering rack? :? Now im confused! :?

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jtbo
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Post by jtbo » 04 Apr 2007 01:36 pm

Stavros wrote:
jtbo wrote:So any progress today? Angle grinder have been hot all day? :D

You are going to fit steering track from Sunbeam for faster steering anyway, aren't you?
Unfortunatley im a automotive journalist, so today ive been mostly writing about cars rather than messing about with the pile of scrap.

Ive not even had time to order a new balljoint yet, hopefully later.

Angle grinder? Steering rack? :? Now im confused! :?
Ah, boring day with writing stuff :( Driving part is much better in your job of course :D

Angle grinder for bodywork and Sunbeam steering rack should fit and give faster steering as standard steering is rather slow 4.8 turns from lock to lock, so I would think that it should be worth upgrade, I'm at least going to hunt down one of those at some point when I get just money and when my frustration to ultra slow steering comes enough great, or if I get more money then just going to electric power steering from rally shop.
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Stavros
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Post by Stavros » 04 Apr 2007 02:24 pm

some bodwork is deffo needed, cutting away the crap with a grinder.

didnt know about the steering rack thing, are they straight swaps?

i had no intention of touching the steering but its nice to know for the future.

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jtbo
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Post by jtbo » 04 Apr 2007 03:12 pm

Stavros wrote:some bodwork is deffo needed, cutting away the crap with a grinder.

didnt know about the steering rack thing, are they straight swaps?

i had no intention of touching the steering but its nice to know for the future.
Not straight, but doable it seems:
http://www.volvo300mania.com/forum-uk/v ... ht=sunbeam
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