Sacramento 02'ers... paint garage

[dang]

G-wagon registered and on the road!  Paint work done and worked through some other problems and now we're driving it, which I'm sure will create a new list of things to do.  E3 now in the garage for the air suspension.  I'll post more about that as I go..

 

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by dang

[dang]

Started the air suspension build on my '69 2800 E3 (Bavaria).

 

The front BMW struts will need to be modified to hold the air strut so I needed to figure out how long the tube needed to be.  There will be a collar on top of the tube that the air strut will thread into and the tube size will be for clearance.

 

Air system is off of a 2008 Lexus IS250.  Air Lift Performance P3.  (OEM BMW rear strut on the right of photo)

 

 

BMW strut will be modified to hold top of air strut.

 

 

I measured the stock strut height while installed on the car along with ground clearance to frame and rockers for reference.  I decided a 2" drop should be a good starting point and would expect to go slightly up or down from there for my final ride height.  I used the mid point of the bag travel to determine bag height, allowed for at least two inches of adjustment on the threaded tube in both directions and ended up with the new strut clearance tube at approx. 12".

[dang]

New tube to be welded onto BMW strut/spindle.  Threaded tube will fit inside tube with a threaded collar on top.

 

 

 

 

Collar will be cut off old strut and welded onto top of new strut tube.

[dang]

Front struts are at the fabricator getting modified so I started working on the compressor/tank/manifold assembly in the trunk and the rear struts. The rear air struts are very close to the OEM E3 struts in size and length, plus the bottom mounting sleeve is the same diameter so all I had to do was shorten the sleeve a little bit for it to fit. I made a simple adapter plate with welded bolts on the bottom plate (ignore the lousy welds) and a top plate as a washer. I mounted the air strut and everything looks great and should have plenty of clearance for the wheel and tire.

 

 

 

 

[RichenFamous]

Flippin’ sikko! Doing some suspension work myself. Not quite as labor intense, but knuckle busting none the less. 
Nice work! 

[dang]

On 4/8/2022 at 8:05 PM, RichenFamous said:

Flippin’ sikko! Doing some suspension work myself. Not quite as labor intense, but knuckle busting none the less. 
Nice work! 

Nice!  Stop by when you get it on the road...

[RichenFamous]

Will do. Fighting a stuck castellated nut from the ball joint on the pitman arm. Gonna have to get the heat out ?. Should be going by the weekend but we are heading to Sonoma for the GTR races on Saturday. ?? Sunday

[dang]

Got the modified front struts back from the fabricator last weekend.  They look awesome!  He sleeved the bottom for strength and help with alignment and still need to weld the brackets on for the backing plate and brake lines but other than that I'm good to go with the rest of the install.

 

 

 

 

 

[dang]

I've been bouncing back and forth between messing with the struts and figuring out what I want to do with the compressor/tank/manifold assembly.  I'm not planning on showing it off so I built a metal frame on a piece of plywood to mount the compressor and tank to and hung the manifold from a bracket above.  You want to keep the manifold higher than any condensation that can form in the lines and tank.  The area between the shock towers has two thin metal plugs on the bottom covered with sealer so I removed one to run the air and power lines through.  I also used the frame to mount an insulated corrugated board to the front, leaving the top and sides open for air flow.  It ended up looking like a speaker box.

 

Here's some photos of test fitting...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by dang

[dang]

System is in and working after some issues with firmware and bluetooth but I still need to clean up all the air line mounting and check wheel/bag clearances.

 

 

[dang]

Well that sucks!  I got the car on the road to start testing the pressures and it "screeched" going down the road.  WTF!  I got out and looked at the front wheels and at stock height they were REALLY positive camber and the wheels were toed in quite a bit.  At about 2" lower they were still slightly positive.  Turns out the guy who fabricated them measured the angles on the bench by hand instead of making a jig and the camber and caster was off.  The toe is an easy fix.

 

So my new project was fixing the struts.  I still had the OEM struts off the car so I built a simple jig that aligned the strut tube with the flange for the calipers on the spindle.  I cut the tubes off and was able to leave the short sleeve that he added under the tube, clamped the spindle and tube to the jig and re-welded it.  They look very close to the OEM struts as far as the angles go but after that driving experience I decided to modify my adapter plates to be camber plates to give me that extra adjustment.

 

Here's the jig and struts.  I'll post the camber plates when I'm done with them.  They're a lot of work since I'm modifying my home made plates to begin with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2022 by dang

[dang]

Homemade camber plates.  Lousy photos taken from a video but you get the idea.

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2022 by dang

[dang]

Driving around with the stock wheels/tires to play with settings.  So far I haven't been able to find the ride I want.  The Style 5's will require spacers and longer studs so I have them on order..

 

[RichenFamous]

1 hour ago, dang said:

Driving around with the stock wheels/tires to play with settings.  So far I haven't been able to find the ride I want.  The Style 5's will require spacers and longer studs so I have them on order..

 

Looking good Dan! 

[dang]

I've been side-tracked with other home projects and haven't been working in the shop for months.  Soon!  I did manage to pick up another future project, which I cannot justify.  Oi.  1979 Mercedes 280GE 4-spd swapped with a 3.0L turbo diesel.  Runs and drives pretty good but will need to be completely gone through.  Major sheet metal work needed, which I'll try doing myself, and the motor will need new gaskets throughout.  Call me crazy.

 

The windshield area is the worst but it has other common areas of rust for an ex German Border Patrol rig.  Frame is solid.