July 2004

ikom Ultima Build

Welcom to visit my home

	Preparing for the build

	April 2004

	May 2004

	June 2004

	July 2004

	August 2004

	September 2004

	October 2004

	November 2004

	June 2005

	July 2005

	August 2005

	September/October 2005

	November 2005


Summer weather holds for the continuation of the build

July 2004

Page 1 of 23 , there are 91 images in this channel.

Title	Installing the rear uprights
Description	Thursday July 1, 2004 Canada Day A nice warm sunny day - I am not working today since it is Canada Day and everything is closed for this national holiday. We plan to tackle the rear uprights today - I had made several trips to various bearing places in the city during the week in order to secure the missing Heim joints and had ordered the pieces, which were to take several days to arrive from the manufacturer in the USA. As a final check through our parts boxes though - on Wednesday night - I decide to rummage through all of the remaining boxes one more time and I find the missing parts at the very bottom of an unmarked box that has the headlight covers and a few other items heavily packed in bubble wrap. The package is neatly labeled "OWED PARTS" by the factory and within the package equally neatly labeled are two plastic bags, "1/2X1/2rose joint and nut" and "5/8X1/2 rose joints for rear uprights" I assume that the factory ran out of these items when the initial order was filled and subsequently added these missing items in a later box prior to shipping. Whew! Great relief! We can now continue with the suspension and brakes. I will however have some spare Heim joints in a few weeks time, for future use if the need arises. I had also posted a question on "Pistonheads" on Wednesday when we realized that the rear uprights had been unwrapped without noting the labeling of their handedness - left or right. A series of email responses came back and BigAl1 from Toronto emailed me with a rationale for installing them so that the forward rotation of their axles tightened the hub nuts. The dilemma though is that none of the threads are visible and since these nuts are torqued to about 220 foot pounds it is not feasible to undo them to check the direction of their threads. I decide to sleuth around other build sites hoping to find a clue towards resolving this vexing question. Hopefully the factory will take note and etch the upright with a simple "left" or "right" to spare future builders grief from this problem. I start looking at as many photographs of the installed uprights as can be found on the web and quickly notice that the left hand side rears (driver's side in a North American car) all have a little green circle at the visible inner thread end of the axle nut. This is a plastic "Nylock" type nut and signified that it was different from the other side. Aha! A quick verification on our own uprights confirm this and we now know that the nut with green inner "Nylock" is a counterclockwise thread and should be installed on the left side of the car. The upright with the plain nut therefore goes on the right hand side. We install the left side upright first, taking particular care to tap in the two steel bushings which are a tight fit between the upper Heim joint so that they are perfectly lined up to allow the long half inch bolt to pass through unimpeded. The lower ends are secured to: " The toe link assembly which is in turn secured to the lower wishbone with a stack of two flat washers on either side of the Heim joint to make up the space between the wishbone lugs and, " The urethane bushed wishbone end, where special attention is needed, because a large diameter thick washer is placed on the outer bushing and a thin large diameter washer is placed on the inner bushing, between it and the upright fixing point to ensure that the bushing assembly stays secure. The next step is the caliper mounting bracket which is machined with a recess that closely matches the outline of the upright mounting "ears". My first reaction was to position it thus and smooth out the alloy of the upright with a high speed carbide bit to make it fit - caution!! DO NOT DO THIS - since the bracket simply bolts on the chassis side of the mounting ears on its flat smooth un-recessed side. The AP brake kit comes complete with a miniature tube of red "LOCTITE" to secure (threadlock) the bolts and nuts of the bracket and calipers which is thoughtful of AP because I couldn't find my own tube of high strength LOCTITE at the time. We unpack the lovely AP drilled floating rotors and note the labeling of its handedness. I have some 12mmX1.5 fine thread metric nuts handy and use them with the appropriate washers to temporarily bolt the rotor onto the hub face. NOTE: the wheels are hub-centric so the rotor fits tightly onto the hub centre protrusion and requires at least three nuts to fix it against the hub face, so that it is square to the hub. This is very important since the rotor will appear to be warped and will bind against the upright (very close tolerances) if it is even slightly out of square with the hub face. The rotor will require a number of removals/installs to get the emergency brake calipers to be centered and functioning - i.e. Installed in the correct location relative to the rotor and upright mounts and an impact wrench is a definite asset during this portion of the work or at least a speed wrench equipped with a deep socket. I have the non BREMBO version of the "handbrake caliper kit" and it is frankly a very disappointing piece of engineering and hardware for incorporating into the ULTIMA. We (my son and I) struggled for a very long time to get this truly badly designed caliper and mounting bracket to work properly. In the end I was just not happy with such a substandard piece of junk on my car and put it away until I think of another solution. I will most likely email the factory and order the BREMBO kit in the next few days. After the fiasco with the emergency brake calipers we decide to abandon them and move onto the installation of the passenger (right hand) side uprights and brakes. This takes a mere half hour and we retire for the day.
Size	199.98K
Date	Jul,01,2004

Title	The right rear upright is installed
Description	The right rear upright is installed in record time after we gain some experience on the left rear install.
Size	196.13K
Date	Jul,01,2004

Title	Left side rear axle nut
Description	Left side rear axle nut (driver's side in North America) showing the green NYLOCK around the hub axle threads indicating that it is a counterclockwise thread.
Size	232.08K
Date	Jul,01,2004

Title	Left hand rear axle nut close-up
Description	Left hand rear axle nut close-up of the green NYLOCK
Size	169.98K
Date	Jul,01,2004

Page 1 of 23 , there are 91 images in this channel.