{"id":451,"date":"2017-08-18T23:59:43","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T22:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.purplemeanie.co.uk\/?p=451"},"modified":"2026-05-28T01:08:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:08:18","slug":"build-session-4-front-suspension-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purplemeanie.co.uk\/index.php\/2017\/08\/18\/build-session-4-front-suspension-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Build Session 4 : Front Suspension 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It had been a busy week at work and I hadn’t had a chance to get on with the car other than 20 minutes to look at the poorly threaded harness mount yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today is a Friday and a work day… and after sorting out all my morning emails I found a couple of hours to start looking at the front suspension before my afternoon  and evening meetings started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are Upper Wishbones Handed?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first task was to read the manual, consult a few blogs and figure out what I’d got to do first on the front suspension. It was around this time that I realised that the manual says that the upper wishbones are handed. That shouldn’t have been a problem except that I’d taken them out of their poly bags to photograph them and hadn’t kept track of what bag they came from – doh!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I poured over the parts but couldn’t discern ant difference at all. I tried measuring offsets, checking the angles that the bushed parts were welded at, and generally trying to find a difference between the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Upper<\/a>
Upper wishbones (left) look identical<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a side note, it’s simple to determine which are the O\/S and N\/S lower wishbones because there’s a circlip retaining the ball joint that faces towards the floor – simples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Upper<\/a>
Pondering upper wishbone handedness over a bacon sandwich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I decided this was a question to post to Blatchat on the Lotus7.club website, but in the meantime I got on with putting the O\/S lower wishbone on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lower Wishbone Washer Configuration<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This build is an SV build (wide body) and there is supposed to be a different configuration of washers used to space the rear mounting point of the lower wishbones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the S3 (narrow body) the manual calls for two plain washers to be placed either side of the rear bush on the lower wishbone. However, it seems that all blogs recommend and use this for the SV (wide body – i.e. ours) chassis too. I decided this was also how we were going to go and so the configuration in the picture below was used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lower<\/a>
Washer configuration on rear mount of lower wishbone (O\/S)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Near-side<\/a>
O\/S Lower Wishbone Installed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Back to the Upper Wishbones<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After only a few minutes of my question being up on Blatchat there were some useful responses to my question, the clincher being that one member had had two LHS upper wishbones delivered… and after consulting Derek Howlett he’d been told that they are actually not handed after all. Along with the fact that I couldn’t tell any difference, I decided to go ahead with putting them on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the next question. The manual calls for the upper wishbone rear bush to have a spacer inserted – 10mm ID, 1\/2″ OD, 35mm long from the polythene bag marked “front suspension”. Well, firstly I don’t have a bag called front suspension, but there is a bag called “suspension” – that’s got to be the bag then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Poly<\/a>
Suspension pack poly bag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once you open the bag there is another poly back with a selection of spacers, below…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Suspension<\/a>
From top to bottom: ARB ends, upright spacers and special nut, bushes (see text)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This inner poly bag contains a number of different components, from top to bottom:<\/p>\n\n\n\n