FERRINO

Hi - Cheers for the heads up, but I have already done the kart bearing for the steering shaft

Brilliant! Many thanks once again

Aaaaaaahh right, that would make sense. The previous builder has definitely made his own drivers side footwell panel as it's a different colour and had his pen markings on for bending and nibbling out etc. So it looks like he's used the drivers side one here then. He also made the tunnel top panel out of a 'men at work' road sign and I'm fairly sure the bit that screws to frame tube where the tunnel cover meets is his own work too? Thanks chaps - mystery solved and much appreciated

Cheers for all the input everyone , Interesting reading in those links. It looks like I've gone and bought the wrong springs then lol. Oh well, I'll get it built up and see what it's like. Will definitely take you up on the kind offer of the springs though Maccavvy cheers and will drop you a message later about them. I guess until the car is on the road you just can't tell what final spring rate you need, so I'll have to wait until it's all finished and IVA'd for that. I've got them built up now with the 200lb springs, so at least the bracket making and fitting can carry on. Cheers again Tony

Following on from my previous embarrasing newbie question:- I've just built up the new coilovers and will be looking at fitting them soon. I'm assuming they are supposed to sit in this direction as the instruction labels read this way? I don't want to go and fit them upside down if they are designed to be directional:- Cheers Tony

Apologies for this - I'm still a relative newbie to this kit building business, but here is the first (no doubt of a huge long list lol) of stupid questions. On the sliding pillar 2B I'm building - there is a large cutout at the top of the passenger footwell end panel. Is this supposed to be here - or is it something the previous builder put in? If it's supposed to be there - what's it designed for?

Nice one - well done! Is yours a wishbone or sliding pillar out of interest? It would be interesting (for me anyway) to know who the last person was to get a slider through.

Cheers again for all the info everyone. Just to update though, It was my Birthday last week and I was lucky enough to have some relatives club together so I could get these from Gina on Ebay :- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301121223143?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_490wt_1142 It was a superb surprise and spurred me on to stop being tight and buy some brand new black springs for them lol. Gina was very helpful when I asked her what length springs were needed (9") and said they used to fit 180lb springs to the rear of 2B's from the factory. From digging around I came up with a starting figure of 200lb and they should be here on Tuesday or Wednesday. Agent_zed - Yes I am going to be fitting them to the Sierra rear end and removing the seperate spring and huge damper arrangement. In fairness, the setup seems ok when I bounce up and down in the garage - as you said, and probably would be fine on the road. I just like the coilover solution as it just looks neater really. I hope the 200lb springs will be ok - you've got me worried now with talk of 350-400lb springs

Wow cheers guys that's hugely appreciated! I'm always so impressed with the members on this site (and club of course). I'm just out in the garage at the moment but will definitely drop you both a message when I get in. Many thanks again it really is hugely appreciated. Cheers Tony

Cheers for the reply Grim, I did look at those and you're right they are £15 each, but without vat at 20% and shipping so would probably work out at best part of £50. Also being extremely picky they are blue which won't suit my colour scheme at all lol. I was just hoping somebody would have an old pair of black ones roughly in this range lying around from when they where messing about with spring rates maybe. I have got to the point now of trying to finish this old 2B sliding pillar as cheaply as possible.

As in title - I'm looking for a pair of springs for coilover shocks. Has anybody got any old ones lying around that they have no use for anymore? As mentioned, they need to be somewhere in the range of 180-210'ish lb I believe (going to be for rear shocks), preferably black and somewhere in the range of 8-10"ish free length? I know they can be had cheaply new from from the spring supplier in the discount section but it sounds a load of grief to get them to your door if it needs to be via the sites pony express helpers etc. Cheers Tony

Hi Ryan - I recently did the seat supports on my 2B build and did this:- http://www.rhocar.org/index.php?showtopic=38040 Probably huge overkill - but it seems to work well. Cheers Tony

Can I be nosey and ask how much you got for it? I've also got a 1.6 pinto'saurus blocking a corner of the garage to get rid of soon you see and it would be good to know how many pence to ask for it lol

Cheers for the replies, it's looking like it's more than sorted now though. I have to say - the service I have received from CBS is absolutely second to none with this problem! I'm so impressed with their after sales service It's unreal (especially after the complete opposite from the totally disinterested Rally Design lot). I emailed CBS last night at something like 9:30pm and was astounded to recieve an apologetic reply from Matt within 30 mins of sending it. He explained that these couplings are a fairly new product line to them and that this was the first he had heard of any problems with them. He of course offered me a refund or replacement straight away - so when replying this morning, I explained about the issues with the ones from RD and that I kept getting more dodgy ones sent in return. So he then offered to go through his entire stock of Sierra triangle couplings and check them all for me to make sure I got a good one - awesome customer service again! He then replied within an hour to say that he had checked the whole stock of 62 Sierra triangle couplings for play and that he was absolutely shocked by the quality! The best one out of all 62 had 0.5mm play at a radius of 300mm (ie a 2ft steering wheel lol)! So being a professional - he is not happy to let any more of these poor quality couplings go out to any other customer (fantastic proactive trader). Even more impressive is that he has commisioned a new batch to be made from a known good quality supplier that he assures me will have absolutely 'Zero' play and will be ready in a few days! What more can you ask for! Fantastic

Following on from this topic:- http://www.rhocar.org/index.php?showtopic=38671 I decided to stop wasting hundreds of pounds buying endless steering joints from Rally design (I ended up having to have 3 rack UJ's from them before I found 1 that didn't have play - and I bought 2 Sierra triangle joints from them both of which had play too). So yesterday I bought a brand new triangle joint from Car Builder Solutions instead. It arrived at lunchtime today and guess what :- https://db.tt/OSNoKaKo I'm assuming they both buy their parts from the same Chinese factory staffed by 5 yr olds and have no confidence that 'yet' another replacement will be any better. To be honest, this whole steering saga fiasco is genuinely making me want to jack in the build completely and I'm very close to just stripping the car and selling up (for a huge loss of course) Is it just me buying these UJ's from them? I can't believe nobody else is sending these things back as regularly as I am - what on earth is happening?? Cheers (hugely fed up)Tony

Thanks for the reply Bob. I have heard many good things about RD which is one of the reasons I chose to use them for these joints. Unfortunately I base my opinion of people/services on my experience with them and so far their my experience of their product inspection/quality is p155 poor. Have you checked carefully the steering joints you have received for the vette project yet by the way? You may be ok - they may just send all the inspection rejects to me lol. Cheers Tony

Apologies for the rant but I really need to let off some steam as I'm mad as hell with Rally Design and their cheap-nasty-dangerous-poor quality crap that they sell! Just following on from this thread:- http://www.rhocar.or...php?showforum=7 I was never happy with my 2B steering from the start with the "dreadfull upside down LH drive Metro rack into the wrong hubs nonsense". So I eventually found a reconditioned manual Sierra rack. Obviously the Sierra rack is far too wide for the 2B so I had the steering arms cut/shortened and rethreaded and had a steering rack extender modded also to suit so it's all much more suitable. I had a brand new custom steering shaft made to my drawing by Alan_builder with the correct splines for the Escort/Sierra rack and couplings. The last step (so I thought) was just to order brand new couplings to connect the whole lot together and it would be perfectly new and ready to go for the IVA steering wise - how wrong I was. I ordered the RD850 Sierra Column Coupling (the triangle one) and the forged RD820F for the shaft to rack connection. They arrived quickly and I fitted them. It was then I put the link to the first post up as there was a lot of play when I turned the wheel. Also, the pin just fell out of the triangle joint coupling and I had to use 2 nut/bolts instead of 1. I sent the shaft-to-rack coupling back (at a cost of £4 to myself) and they sent another. That one was better. There was still play in the steering though and I eventually tracked it back to the same thing happening at the triangle joint coupling. So that's 2 out of 2 couplings rubbish MOT and IVA failures. I remained calm and sent the triangle joint coupling back also (another £4 postage). The new one arrived today and I attempted to fit it. The pin fell out of the first one but the pin on this one was far too tight and wouldn't allow the the triangle shaft to even go in let alone tighten. So I had to drill it out. Once I'd finished messing about with the drilling and resetting the steering tonight I was absolutely horrified to see play at the triangle joint again (maybe even worse than the first piece of junk I sent back)! I am so furious with RD. I suspect they buy their steering couplings from China or India for cheapness but the quality is absolutely shocking especially for such a safety critical component! I am now done with RD and will never darken their door ever again. Car builder solutions have these couplings (albeit a bit more dear) so I probably give them a go. Not before I have rung RD tomorrow though and given them a piece of my mind. I have been in touch with them via email (some disinterested individual called Scott) and expressed my dissapointment with the quality of their steering couplings and had no reply whatsoever. That goes to tell me exactly what they think of customer support. Anyway - rant over. Apologies for it but I decided that the first job when I got the car in May last year would be to sort the steering properly and now in Feb of the following year I'm still trying to sort it...............

I'm guessing you probably have this sorted by now, but I've been going through the same process and discovered these on Ebay. They were dirt cheap so decided to give them a go. Just fitted them tonight:- http://www.ebay.co.u...#ht_7369wt_1108 They arrived in less than 5 days and are a nice hard rubber. The 19mm diameter hole in the rubber means its a nice tight fit on the on the 20mm chrome shaft Fitted a large washer with a 20mm hole diameter either side and it seems to be doing the job a treat at the moment. Time will tell of course once the cars on the road but it looks ok to me at the moment. Only downside is they only seem to do them in yellow (which works out nicely for me as my car is going to be black/yellow lol). To be fair though though they aren't all that noticable on the car and once on the road they will probably get filthyblack down there anyway. Cheers Tony

Looks to be in about 3-4 times better nick than the rusty-rotten-barely started Sliding Pillar 2B I took on last year Boost! Should make an interesting project. Just recently had to weld in angle sections to support the seats on mine (really don't like the idea of bolting the thing that holds you up to a thin flimsy piece of sheet with some spreader plates attached). So I would personaly say that if it's structurally sound and just surface rust, to just clean them up and use them. There is so much other ridiculous grief to sort out with the early 2B's it seems that at least one of the jobs would be sorted for you already. Also it gives you something to mount your inner seatbelt fixings to which is also something completely missing from the 2B chassis. Has it got an engine in it? What are you planning to do with on that front? Is it using the nonsense upside down LHD Metro rack with the wrong tapers for the Sierra hubs or has the previous owner done the proper thing and modded a Sierra rack or similar? Also just noticed you are from Winterton - I used to live there many years ago (coates avenue). Cheers Tony

Cheers Dan, yeah it was a shame but they just didn't look right somehow. Saying that, the £90 pair of brand new black locost rear arches I bought don't look right either (mostly due to that silly chunk of rear suspension chassis that sticks out of the side on the 2B).

As in title - have put the rear arches I bought last year from Brumster on Ebay if anybody is interested. It's a shame really - was hoping I could do something with them for the 2B build - but they just don't look right unfortunately Cheers Tony http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221351664867?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_500wt_1255

Hi Dan - just wanted to quickly say that I'm really enjoying this build thread and as a newbie to kit car building I also really appreciate the time you're taking to do these guides for the benefit of people like me. Keep up the great work! Really looking forward to seeing how your car turns out. Cheers Tony

Again, much appreciated Cheers! I guess this coupling slipped through quality control or something?

Thanks Bob - much appreciated, I'll give them a bell tomorrow. I've got a queston for them about the triangle steering column coupling I bought off them too which I'm having to use 2 nut/bolts to hold the retaining plate down with. The old one off the Sierra had one side loosely riveted to allow it to spin and pivot but the new RD one came with what looks like a rivet which is too short and just supplied loosely in the bag? Cheers Tony

I'm sure I already know the answer to this - but would appreciate confirmation from all you experienced builders please. Started putting my new steering arrangement together last night using a brand new Rally Designs Forged Coupling. Once it was all together there seemed an awful lot of play at the steering wheel. Tracked it down to the new RD280F coupling. Please see attached video link:- https://db.tt/DiRGLzPF This is waaaaayyyyyy too much movement here for a brand new coupling right?? I'd just like peoples opinions before I go back to Rally Designs. Cheers Tony