Big thanks to the guys at the Italian replica club who let me on their site at the show
Cheers Paul
A few people seemed to look around it but it wasn't parked where everyone was sitting and I felt weird sitting on my own behind the car so didn't really get to hear that many people's thoughts on it unfortunately- but I'm glad I managed to make it down there - glad I picked the Saturday to go too
A lot of people picked up on the negative camber on the rear wheels so I think sorting this out somehow is the next priority
LOL haven't done anything - in fact the paint is getting pretty shoddy looking where bits are catching on the arches etc - you probably can't see the imperfections on the pic
Cheers guys
I'm looking into getting a new spring made to correct the camber - who knows if it will sort it or not
Ha yeah!
Any more progress on yours yet?
Ok so latest updates .....
so I tried to have a new spring made specifically to the weight of the car to try and reduce the negative camber / increase the ride height and still retain the softness of ride.
found a company who said they would help me - except a few weeks down the line and several emails later they seemed to be backing away from the project as if they didn't want to do it.
so, I decided to go back to the company who extended my spring length to try and solve the camber before. I asked then to reprofile the spring so that it has more 'curve' to it. Then the hope was that this extra curve would translate into a higher ride height and so less negative camber. this cost me £60 - plus £40 for my mechanic to refit the spring etc. so £100 in total. Midland road springs were the company that re=profiled this.
so here's the new re-profiled spring (above the original leaves that were replaced with the extended ones - to show the curve difference between before and after)
[IMG]
2spring by
paul ward, on Flickr[/IMG]
although it didn't totally fix the issue - the ride height is now about 3cm higher than it was (which means the exhaust doesn't scrape the floor anymore)
and the negative camber is slightly reduced - which looks a bit better aesthetically.
so all in all - it's not ideal, but it was a cheaper option that has partly worked - and I can live with that at the moment.
2rear by
paul ward, on Flickr
Definitely looks a bit better than the rear camber did before -
2-front by
paul ward, on Flickr
However!!!
I'm still having issues with the wheelarches - I took the car to the Lichfield ' cars in the park' show last sunday - and it got alot of positive interest which was good.
what was bad was that I noticed another crack in a weld on the wheelarch support brackets .... I really hoped we had solved this issue, but, alas, no.
so next week I have the car booked into my mechanic friend again to try and maybe look at attaching the arches to the body / chassis - rather than to the wheels as they are now.
it's going to raise the arches higher and will look quite different, but I don't see any other way of getting around this issue.
I'm starting to wonder if any of the other Fiorano owners in the past had any of these issues - and if so, maybe that's why they are no longer Fiorano owners!!
I truly believe that this is a beautiful looking car - and peoples reactions at shows have confirmed that to me .... however I can imagine alot of people who built these in the past possibly having issues like this along the way and so deciding to take the easy option and sell up instead of resolving the issues.
... I wonder?
cheers, yeah I'm hoping this might finally sort it.
hope you're ok - fingers crossed that you'll be in a position to restart on yours soon too.
Ok, so more updates .... sfter getting another broken arch support I'd decided to try and mount the arches to the chassis / body to try and reduce the vibration on them when driving - after trying with some flat bar we decided to go for steel tube instead - it's 21 / 22 mm diameter tube with a 2mm thick wall.
we have done the front so far and it seems to be pretty sturdy (havent attached the actual arches yet though) - so on monday we satrt work on the back arches
here's how it looks so far -
[IMG]
1-archsupportsw by
paul ward, on Flickr[/IMG]
here;s how it looks with the arch placed in position -
1-arche2w by
paul ward, on Flickr
The arch will sit higher than before to allow for suspension travel - but after looking at lots of true vintage racers like delages' talbot lagos' and rileys etc it looks like most have the arches supported like this and not 'from the wheel' as the fiorano was originally.
I quite like the look, - it's also going to increase the turning circle of the car which has been a bit of a nightmare to deal with - so that's an added bonus.
All in all if it makes the car more drivable in terms of not having something go wrong every time I take it out - it has to be an improvement!
1-arch1w by
paul ward, on Flickr
thanks - yeah, fingers crossed
Yeah it will be if it sorts it
Yeah, If I'm caught in the rain that's the least of my worries
Almost finished them now - haven't driven it yet but they seem much more sturdy to me.
