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build diary January 14, 2005: Knowing the car is in the garage is killing me with our current sunny weather. I've been concerned for a while with the angles of my rod ends on the steering at full droop. So while talking to my favourite parts yard, I ordered a couple of front uprights from a 2002 Miata. For the 1999-05 cars, the mounting point for the tie rod was moved up 7mm from the earlier design. This might help me enough. They're also unmolested so I'll have the opportunity to use stock ball joints instead of the bolted rod ends I use now - that would completely eradicate the problem. I could also relocate the steering rack but I'd have to change the length. Coincidentally there's a broken steering rack on the way as well that might help me out with spare parts to do just that. It's not bump steer I'm chasing here, it's the stress that is put on the rod ends as the suspension reaches maximum droop. A bit of grinding might solve the problem - more investigation is needed. This way I'll have the parts on hand, and if I don't use them I'm sure another "locoster" would be interested. entry 748 of 1439 |