With the wishbones now bare I could get on to examining them and preparing them for the full POR15 treatment (why I chose this coating over other options I will explain later). I was pretty confident the wishbones were not suffering from any serious corrosion as my Elise is at fairly low mileage of 53k […]
S1 Elise – Suspension Refresh – Removing Ball Joints and Bushes from Wishbones
The last parts to strip down were the wishbones. They all had some surface rust, as seems to be the norm for all Elise’s, so I wanted to clean them down and give them a good coating of POR15. I had also ordered spherical bearings to replace the rubber bushes and new ball joints for all […]
S1 Elise – Suspension Refresh – Pressing out Drive Flanges and Wheel Bearings.
Having removed all suspension components from the chassis, the next thing to do was start breaking down what was left into single components for cleaning and refurbishment or replacement. The first thing I needed to do was come back to the ball joint that had refused to split and broken my trusty old ball joint […]
S1 Elise – Suspension Refresh – Strip Down
As soon as I got the Elise I got it up on the lift for a good look over and found a few little jobs that needed doing including replacing some suspension parts like a ball joint and track rod ends at the front and a couple of toe link rod ends at the rear, […]
Forester STI – Whiteline Rear Subframe Lock Bolts
While I was reading about various rear ARB options for Subaru’s I came across the rear subframe lock bolts that Whiteline and some other suspension upgrade companies offer. So I did a bit of research about them and found that people who’ve fitted them say they make a noticeable difference. Obviously this is not always […]
Forester STI – Whiteline Rear Anti Roll / Sway Bar
If you’re not already aware, A Subaru Forester is basically a jacked up Impreza with a slightly larger, boxy body. Those are the things that attracted me to one, the performance and tuning potential of an Impreza but with more space in the back for stuff. Being ‘jacked up’ and the ‘larger, boxy body’ both […]
Forester STI – New Fog Light Cover STI Decals
The left fog light cover could do with a new decal and a little freshen up with a layer of lacquer so I carefully measured the dimensions of the original STI decals and had an eBay seller make me some exact copies of them for me. I wanted to make sure I placed the new […]
S1 Elise – Detail Monkey Sunday Breakfast Meet
Having dealt with all the jobs on my first list it was time to get this lot put away and get the car out on the road! It was still very much winter so nice dry roads were few and far between but we did get a nice clear dry couple of days including a […]
S1 Elise – New Cobra Key Fob Surround
One of the Cobra alarm key fobs was looking pretty ropey. It’s something you have to carry around with you and it’s so cheap and easy to deal with I don’t know why people put up with crappy old ones. Yukky brown thing with a cable tie replacing the long since broken rubber and a […]
S1 Elise – Quick Wheel Alignment Check
Having replaced the rods and rod ends of the rear toe links and the track rod ends on the steering it was certainly worth a quick check of the wheel alignment. Plus I don’t know exactly when it was last done or how it was set so I wanted to find out how things were […]