For anyone that has been following along with my other threads the rear tie rods on the car are what actually triggered all the other work. When I had it in for pre-race inspection last fall, the tech flagged the rear tie rods as needing to be replaced. The bushings are splitting. It wasn't bad enough to prevent aligning the car, but it was bad enough to go on the winter "to-do" list. In chatting with my service writer, he mentioned the metal cooling system update, with the note "If you see your temp start to climb at all during the race, pull over and shutdown immediately. Your day is done and one of the pipes has split at the seam." I had been mulling over doing the exhaust and supercharger/tune. Doing the rear tie rods really needs the muffler out... and well, the rest is history.

First up, the read tie rod ends.



No question the rubber is shot. I fully expected to find significant degradation in the rest of the rubber suspension parts. Once I got it up in the air and enough parts removed to see everything, I was pleasantly surprised to not find anything else needing attention (well, almost nothing else). All the bushings and boots are still in good shape and flexible. So whatever the cause, it is limited to just the rear tie rod outer bushings.

I have a pair of Lemforder toe adjustment links on order. It's looking like they are going to be the "long tail" in the combined projects on this car, given that the order was place 12/22 and they haven't shipped yet

I noted earlier that almost nothing else in the suspension needed replacement. Unfortunately, the front spring isolators are the other thing. Once I got the wheel liners out and took a closer look, I could see the right side isolator was cracked and it would only be a matter of time before it disintegrated. The left side looked fine, but if one is bad, I assume both are, or will be shortly.





I have not yet checked the rear springs, but will be looking at those as well.

While I have the car apart, I'm also taking care of a little piece of body work. Before I owned the car, someone hit something with the left side of the front bumper. There is touch up paint were the contact was made. It was a big enough impact that it broke the mounting tabs on the left headlight. The tabs weren't completed broken off, but were bent and cracked. Some time ago, I pulled the headlight, straightened the tabs and reinforced them with fiberglass. However the bumper has never properly aligned with the hood and fenders and I couldn't properly align the headlights (always pointed to low).

This is why.




Those are the metal brackets the front of the headlight assembly mounts to. The bumper also connects there. They are suppose to be night a straight, all the way across. Neither was particularly straight, but the left side was the worst. Not one were they bent along the length, but that had a bit of a twist in them to.

After some time in the bench vise and judicious application of percussive force, they are much, much better.


The still need a bit more attention -- mainly to ensure the threaded "nuts" are squared up, but I expect this will go a long way towards evening out the gaps between the bumper, hood, and fenders.

 

We found 1/2 of a rear spring isolator on our garage floor 2 years ago. "OH, That's what that occasional CLUNK is"

I promptly purchased some spring isolator/covers for a Honda, but never installed them. What I did instead was to spray lithium grease up into the spring seats yearly...that action has eliminated the noise since!

++++++++++

As I have mentioned in the past, I use a silicone spray on all our rubber bushings and tie rod ends. This has stopped any deterioration or cracking of the boots or rubber bushings. I drain oil the traditional way from the sump, rather than pump it out, so that I can give the undercarriage a good once-over.

PS I also spray the silicone on the front's upper spring cushions too, the ones you can see from the top.

 

Well, when I started in on the tie rods today, I found a chunk of spring isolator in the rear right spring, so they will be getting replaced.

New tie rods showed up yesterday.



You need long extensions for this. Taking the right interior nut off, you come in all the way from the left side.



My 1/2" extensions wouldn't fit through the cutout on the right side, so to get the left interior nut off, I used a u-joint.



New vs old -- the old are definitely in bad shape.





The new one's aren't Jaguar parts, but are Lemforder (probably the OEM for Jaguar) and are specced as OEM equivalent replacements. They are noticeably thinner shafts, but otherwise are equivalent replacements. I aligned the new and old, on the bench and set the length as close as I could -- within a millimeter or less. It's going in for an alignment once it's all back together, so it just needs to be "close enough" for the a few miles of driving.

It took me a little while to settle on the proper installation procedure. When the tie rods are removed, the rear hub assembly will go to max positive toe. With two people you could install the tie rod and tighten the inside nut, then have someone rotate the hub assembly while you drop the outer bolt in. To do it as a single person, this is what I settled on.

• Measure the location of the outer section on the threaded part of the inner section, so that you know the proper final length. I used a set of calipers to measure between the face of the jam nut and the sholder of the slope on the inner rod.
• Loosen the jam nut and remove the outer rod entirely.
• Install the inner rod and tighten down the nut. I used an 8mm socket on the end of the inner ball threaded rod, with a wrench on the nut.
• Once its tightened, thread in the outer rod until the end aligns with the wheel hub and you can drop the bolt in.
• Tighten down the outer bolt.
• rotate the inner rod section, with a wrench, until the rod is the correct length and tighten the jam nut.

Note that the shop manual says to do the final torque of the nuts with the car on the ground (suspension loaded).

Now that I know how to do it, I could do it again in about 30 minutes -- excluding removing the muffler.





I've got a pair of spring isolators. They are going to go in the rear, so I can button up the rear of the car. I'll order a second set for the front.

 

Started tackling the rear spring isolators.

The F-Type... she has lots of junk in her trunk.


I'm getting real close to pulling the rest of the rear trim out to get a look at the cross brace, for harness mounting. But... stay focused....

I got the left spring and shock assembly out. Turns out its not the foam-ish upper isolator. It's the lower isolator. So now that's been ordered.



Took the assembly apart -- these are pretty decent spring compressors and give good, positive lock on the springs: I hate working on suspension. The springs terrify me...

The rear upper isolator, and bumper, look ok. They are going to get replaced anyway, since I have everything apart.






Lower isolator is disintegrating.


So much for having her back on her feet, any time soon. Will be at least a couple of weeks now.

 

She got put back down on her feet, at least the back, yesterday so that I could torque down the tie rod nuts. I temporarily put the rear shock assembly back in place. Waiting on a parts shipment before I can redo all the shocks completely.





Why go to the pain of putting the rear shock back in temporarily? Well, the shop manual says to torque the tie rod nuts with load on the suspension. I needed to get the tie rods torqued so I could get the muffler put back in and the muffler blocks easy access. That said, its probably a lot easier to do with the muffler in place with the VAP exhaust, rather than stock.

 

Yes very common. All the Jags I have ever got underneath have needed the rear toe rods and sway bar end links changed but everything else looked fine. Kind of odd that it's these two items.
I also note the front sway bar end links are a pretty common part to change out too.
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I suspect its partly due to the fact that the rubber, on both the tie rods and sway bar links, is not a bushing. It's a boot, and relatively thin compared to something like a CV boot. Just my theory though. So far, the rear tie rods and the soft rubber bits on the shocks are all I have found. :fingers crossed:

 

No reason to torque the tie rods at level as they have ball joints, but anything with an actual rubber bushing, yes it's important to have the wheel at normal ride height to avoid preload and premature failure of the rubber bushings.

You can also jack the wheel up to the correct position in the wheel well, if you have the car up in the air. Same difference.

 

I was somewhat puzzled by the note in the shop manual, for the reasons you noted. I'm going to guess that the note included for all suspension components, regardless, to reduce the possibility of a tech making a mistake. I figured the extra couple of minutes to lower it onto the ramp wasn't a big deal and now I have the excuse "but I followed the manual".

 

We do like to err on the side of caution with some things, it seems. It certainly can't hurt, just creates extra steps.

 

After life getting in the way for a bit (work travel), I got to working on the suspension. I got the right front pulled.

...and it looks like I'll wait on parts for a bit.

The spring mounts look fine from the underside.


However, the top side shows signs of the foam starting to degrade. I don't really want to take everything apart a second time in a year, when the foam decides to fully crumble.



Not thrilled, and not cheap, but the prior owners of this car skimped on repairs, and I won't.

Now, came the surprise. The front springs have tubular isolators on them. However, it doesn't look like its a separate part like the rears. I'm guessing you have to buy the whole spring.



I wonder if I can find appropriate sized rubber or heat shrink tubing....

 

Got the rubber bits replaced in both rear shocks. This is the better of the two.




The bump stop and isolater didn't have to be replaced, but since had the thing completely apart, it seemed silly not to.

All back together and buttoned up.



One thing I learned -- do not tighten the upper mounting nuts on either side until you get both shocks in. We tightened them by finger, down to the thread lock (new nuts). If you tighten one side down and put the lower bolt in place, you will be fighting the sway bar when you go to insert the lower bolt. It will take a couple hundred pounds or more to get the knuckle to move down enough to get the bolt in. If you leave them both loose, you can very easily line things up, put the lower bolts in on both sides, then tighten down the upper mounting nuts.

Don't forget to plug in the damper control plug (if you have active suspension) before you put all the interior lining pieces back in place.

The back end of the car is now done. Waiting on parts for the front.

 

I didn't take a whole bunch of pictures of doing the front dampers.

I ended up re-using the front bump stops as I couldn't find a suitable replacement without ordering the shocks. Mine were in good enough condition that it was only an annoyance.


Front dampers are all back together and back in the car.



Definitely not on my list of pleasant jobs. The front required separating the mounting fork -- a 3lb sledge helps. When putting back, you can use the force of a jack to slight the shock body back into the fork. For those doing this the first time, the damper mounting bolt, in the fork, is torque-to-yield. Order a set before you start. The rest of the bolts are one time use according to the shop manual, but with new loctite for those that use it, and if the rubber lock in the other is ok, you could probably re-use. I ordered all new, across the board.

 

The car is starting to go back together. I opted to glass the broken airbox mount, on the left side, rather than pay >$1500 for a new.


I had already done glass work on the left headlight, so the airbox wasn't breaking new ground.


The front bumper is back on, but not aligned yet. I still need to figure out the supercharger belt squeak before I put all the underbody parts back in place and start aligning body parts.

 

If you don't have it, here is the alignment guide for the front.

 

Thanks @Thunder Dump . I spent the better part of an evening going back and forth, tweaking this and adjusting that. Doesn't help that the car had front end impact in the past and, while I fixed some obvious stuff, there is no telling what is off "just a little bit". Eventually I gave up and stopped as I'm going to have the hood off again pretty soon anyway. Mainly. I think I just need to tilt the right headlight bracket down a bit, to bright right edge of the bumper in, just a hair.




Alignment has been done and it drive like it should.



With that... I'm going to call this one done!