Now the the Elise was back together, after a complete suspension refresh, it would need a wheel alignment check. I was pretty careful about setting everything up during reassembly so that hopefully everything would be about right but it still had to be checked and the front and rear toe would certainly need some adjustment. […]
I thought I’d take a few pictures of everything freshly reassembled after the suspension refresh, as a record of it’s condition, before I cover it all with ACF-50 and it ends up with a layer of brake dust and road grime over it. Now I can get the Elise back on it’s wheels! π
With the front finished it’s time to start assembling rear suspension components back onto the Elise. Pretty much the same as the front with a few small differences. Starting with these chassis brackets for the lower wishbones. A bit of corrosion block grease applied too. Right hand lower wishbone on. Upper one on. Damper mount. […]
Now the wishbones are on and the bolts all torqued up… …I moved on to assembling the rest of the front end. As usual with these things ‘refitting is the reverse of removal’. The ball joint plinths need fitting to the ball joints first. I used a bit of copper grease here to help prevent […]
Having read a little about Elise wheel alignment it sounds like the best thing to do is to get as much caster angle into the front hubs as possible. More caster angle means increased weight and ‘feel’ in the steering and should increase grip at the front when cornering. The available caster adjustment on an […]
While I had the rest of the suspension apart I figured I may as well replace the 20 year old rubber anti roll bar bushes with something a little better. So as I was already ordering a list of parts from EliseParts.com I went for some of their Nylatron ARB bushes. The bushes and grease […]
Just a couple of bits to assemble before parts go back on the car. The rear caliper brackets need to be fitted to the hub carriers before the drive flanges can be pressed into the bearings. This is because access to the allen head bolts is restricted when the drive flange is in place. With […]
After a lot of dismantling, cleaning, painting and a bit of assembly of parts it’s finally time to start fitting parts back onto the Elise. There’s quite a few parts though which includes a fair number of nuts, bolts and washers. So first I took the time, with the help of my glamorous assistant, to […]
If you happen to have arrived here looking for info on how to replace a ball joint with the wishbone still on the car then check out my other post here. Having fitted the Elise Parts wishbone bearing kit I could move on to pressing the new ball joints in but just before getting stuck […]
To be honest I couldn’t see or feel much wrong with the original rubber wishbone bushes, they didn’t have any excessive movement and hadn’t aged badly. But to properly prepare and paint the wishbones they had to be removed so some replacements were required. I had a good read about the various replacement options and […]