Yesterday I spent a few hours down in the garage looking at my
front end. I'm planning on getting my front crossmember re-inforced,
so I decided to check my ball joints to see if they need replacing or
not. A friend had checked them last fall and they were OK, but I
wanted to see if they have gotten any worse.
Both uppers & lowers looked OK, with know discernible
movement. I performed the tests in the factory tiger manual. The
test for the lower ball joint made perfectly good sense, but the test
for the upper joint did not make as much sense. It says basically to
pivot the upper a-arm about the fulcrum pin while the car is on the
ground. To me, this seems like it only further loads the upper ball
joint, and the "test" should envolve loading and unloading the upper
ball joint.
Is there a better test one can do on the upper ball joint?
Does anybody understand what I'm babbling about and where my confusion
may lie?
During my explorations yesterday, I also found that brake line
Tee for the front end is leaking onto my (previously) nice green
paint. So, I need to probaably tighten lines/replace sending unit.
In order to do that, I need to pull my generator off. So, while I'm
there, I thought I might as well look into replacing it with an
alternator. (Wait a minute, wasn't I planning on only rebuilding my
front end???)
What is the lowest hassle alternator replacement for a stock
generator? Does anyone make a kit/custom brackets to go with a
particular alternator, or is it time to buy an alternator @ Kragens
and get out the hand drill, rat tail file and dremel?
The real pisser about all this is that after doing all this
work, my car is not actually going to handle much better, since the
front end is already in decent shape (OK, new A-arm bushings and Konis
will help out.) I'm only doing this so that next year on the
California Melee Rallye I won't have to worry about my front cross
member giving up the ghost! So, all this work will only buy "peace of
mind" and an improved charging system. Oh well.
By the way, check out March' s "Road & Track". There is a
short article on last year's California Melee. Unfortunately, the
author didn't have any photos or mention the best car there, MY TIGER!
Windsor
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