Tony,

Check your camber on the rear. Are both sides equal? Just eyeball it.
Have you done an alignment yet? Did you ever get an alignment when you installed those rear control arms?

Hope your wife is feeling better.

 

Huh. That seems easy enough to check. Just undo one of your swaybar links and drive carefully around your block to settle it out, then inspect everything again.

 

Mickey, I have all 4 rear control arms set at factory length. I did check to see if they might have moved, and the the nuts are still snug. Camber does appear to be about equal also... On the front, as you might recall, Randy set the plates on the same mark or delineation, so the they should be fairly accurate as well...

No, I haven't done an alignment yet simply because I don't want to go there (that shop you recommended) only for him (Brandon?) to say that something is screwy, and that they can't' help me. Or, if so, there would be added time and costs for them to sort it out for me...

iDiaz, thanks for chiming-in also! I've read a fair number of your posts over on MM, and have learned much from you. Your idea sounds easy enough. I'll remove one end of each sway bar and go for a short drive. Man, I really hope it's something as simple as that...

I recall Randy freeing the front sway bar, but I don't think he did the rear one. If I get home from work early one day this week, I'll give it a go and report back.

Any other feedback is certainly appreciated. Thank you.

 

Onasled,

I haven't pulled anything apart on my Mini yet. However, I have a semi track ready Si sitting outside my office with hard rubber bushings installed just about everywhere. The front control arms, for example -and there is an upper and lower in this design, will remain at stock location with dampers and springs removed. If I attempt to push down or up on these, they swing back as if attached via a rubber band. Yes, there are steel dowels in these bushings, but the torque specs also cause a certain amount of pre-determined deflection. The lower control on the Honda appears to be very much like the one on the Mini. I'll know as soon as I can get a set of PSS9's.

How are your heim joints holding up? These can wear very fast on the street.

Tony, sorry about the interruption.

 

Meb, I understand. It takes time for this stuff to completely click with me.

 

You're a great contributor with lots of passion Onasled, no apologies necessary, ever! I've been called either the absent minded professor or an air head by just about everyone who comes into contact with me...active minds apparently worry others. So, I'm in good company

Frankly, email is very hard to understand anyway.

 

I want to report back that it appears that I have the PSS9 issue resolved. As Steve at Bilstein thought, I had a "frozen" sway bar (rear). With endlinks detached, I found it very difficult to budge it, and when I finally did get it to move, it took a fair amount of force.

I have the H-Sport Comp bar with Zerk grease fittings, but I couldn't find my gun. Plus, ideally, one should use that really sticky grease that stays put. Since that stuff can't be applied through a Zerk fitting, I have no idea why they exist in the first place. Oh well... I removed the 4 13mm bolts achoring the bar to the subframe, pulled-out the bushes, thourghly cleaned them, and lubed them up with whatever I had in the grease gun (moly, I believe). Big difference!

Feeling fairly certain that this was the culprit, I equalized the perches; setting the rears to 180mm (per the instructions, range provided), and the fronts at 220mm. I could tell soon as I lowered the car that it was much better already :smile: . And, after a short drive, I'm definitely good to go!

These cars are so dang stiff, that the frozen rear bar altered the ride height up the front also. Feeling much better...

Coming next week are new tires, and hopefully adjustable endlinks, if Alta gets the new ones in... An alignment and corner-balance will follow right afterwards. Thanks again for everyone's help!

 

Glad to hear it you resolved it, Tony! I've heard white lithium grease works well with polyurethane bushings, and that stuff is pretty thick.

 

I think I have some lithium grease around here, but not white though. Do you think it could be pumped through the Zerk fittings? I'm guessing not...

It seems that the best grease requires application by hand which entails bracket and bushing removal. While I know that the lighter greases won't last as long, the simplicity of just shooting them into through the Zerks is appealing. And since I rotate tires every other month, it would be a pice of cake to do, along with silicone spray on my control arm rod ends. The key now is to find the best grease that can applied through the Zerks. Sounds like a good topic for a new thread .

 

Tony,

I lube my H-Sport comp sway bar along with the H-Sport uppper and lower control arms thru the Zerk fittings with a product called Sta-Lube before each track event (along with oil/filter change). It comes in a tube with its own hand pump/Zerk fitting.

Frozen sway bar?

 

Mickey, I'm glad you saw this! Saves me a PM to you .

Stay-Lub, with the Zerk connection sounds like the ticket! Thank you. I just tried searching on it, and Stay-Lube, and found nothing...

Where do you get it? If you have a link, please share...

 

Sta-Lube!

Matt

 

Funny how after we see something, we then recall it! Heck, I have several Sta-Lube products around here...

I'll look for what Mickey is talking about...

Thanks Matt!

 

Oops, wrong medicine cabinet. Yes, sta-lube:

http://www.crcindustries.com/crcweb/ search for "super white grease".
May not be the "best" but works for me over the last year or so.

I bought mine from a local here in Livergluch - Monument Auto Parts.
Came with a nifty jiffy-luber push button grease gun that screws onto the top of the tube - does not include elbow grease required to pump this little grease gun.

 

Elbow grease, I have plenty Mickey, thanks, as always.

 

Do I need to remove the lower ball joint in order to remove the front strut?

 

No need to do that is very easy...

 

When you say very easy, when I look at it it looks as if I would have to contract the spring to lift the bottom of the shock out of the hole by at least 2 inches but having a spring on top, it looks like I wouldn't be able to compress it by hand.

The rear is easy, I've done that type many times, the front, I guess I'll have to try it, it just doesn't look like it can be pulled out by hand but I guess until I try I won't know.

 

some of the earlier years require that either the front springs be compressed on the car or that the ball joints be broken to get the front struts off the car.

 

Mine is a 04 MCS.
remove the three upper bolts. then remove the lower arm from the strut. Push the arm down. Move the strut from side to side until you get enough space to remove the whole strut...

 

Sept 2002 build (2003 MCS) doesn't require any more than removing the front wheel, disconnecting the sway bar, removing the brake lines from their retaining clips on the strut, loosening the pinch bolt where the bottom of the strut goes into the control arm, and wiggling the control arm down off strut. The driver's side is hard than the passengers, but neither require any more than described. I've lost count of the number of times I've had the struts (or coilovers) off and on. Between 8 and 10 times for each front.

When the control arm comes off the strut, just try and keep it from dropping too far as the drive shaft is attached.

Scott
90SM

 

Thanks so much guys, when I first looked at it I didn't think the control arm could go any lower, I thought I had to compress the spring but with your description it made my day, hopefully I can get my PSS9 tomorrow, I will install it right away, it sounds very simple.

Brand new 2005 with F1 GS-D3 and PSS9, it doesn't get any better than this, if you guys would know all the cars that I've owned and still do for a few of them, you would find it hard to believe the MINI is my all time favorite, people around me can't understand but you guys do because you drive one of them.

I never had a car this addictive, I can't do anything around the house anymore, I spend all my free time driving this thing, how the hell did they pack so much fun is such a tinny little car is beyond me
Now try to take that grin out of my face especially when I cruise at 35 mph and turn at an intersection by accelerating when most people would slow down before taking the 90 deg. corner .

When I came back and told the wife "if someone wants the ZR1 and the price is fair, he can have it" she almost passed out, then when I aksed her if she wanted to try it, after that comment, she couldn't refuse, now I'm working on her so she would get rid of her Z28 and buy a MINI.

 

oh oh!! u have the 'mini' bug, -out in full force

 

Scott, I was reading your post and had to tell my own experience, the driver's side on my 2005 was easier than the passenger side, on the passenger side, the control arm won't go down low enough to remove the strut, there's about 1.25 inches left in the lower mount and the only way to get it out was to put a block of wood under the base of the coil and jack it up, installing the PSS9, I used my spring compressor and compressed the shock by hand and got it in, there was no way I could have done it any other way.

 

Why is this so? Is ther something independently unique to each side?