build diary

April 12, 2004: The steering is all in place and functions.
It's childish fun being able to sit in a seat, turn the steering wheel and see the wheels move back and forth - but I don't care! The teflon pillow block was used in place of the intended rod end to support the column. Rod ends of that size are very expensive. The teflon part cost me $6 and I drilled it out to the exact (metric) diameter of the steering column. The bracket on the frame had to be extended to make it fit but that was easy to do with a piece of aluminum.

I've also had a bit of a puzzling time with front suspension. When setting up for the tie rod measuring, I discovered that one side of the front suspension was binding. I swapped the upper arms from side to side - and discovered that I had one of them installed backwards! Whoops. I installed them both the same way and they worked well. Since I don't have instructions, I had to look at the photos of the GRM build and discovered that now both of them were backwards. Once they were installed correctly, both sides still worked smoothly. I can't explain it. But it works. So, what's next? Probably the dashboard.

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