Seats and Harnesses

Intatrim Ranger seats have been installed in the car along with the Tiger provided harnesses.  I decided not to opt for colour coded piping on the seats as I think there is already enough contrast with the red harnesses and red detail line on the wheel rims.  Also, I was a bit worried that light coloured piping on the seats would quickly discolour.  That said I'll have to make sure only clean hands handle the red harnesses.

To mount each seat four M8 cap head bolts were used with nyloc nuts.  Bolting through each of the two lengthwise chassis rails and fitted with load spreading washers inside the seat and underneath the car.

Flywheel and Clutch

To add the new ring gear to the Tiger lightened flywheel the former was put in a hot oven and the latter in the freezer.  Once fitted the ring gear was held in place with weights until both had returned to room temperature.

Comparing old (Focus) and new lightened (Pinto) flywheels.  On the scales the Focus weighs in at 9.8kg and the Pinto at 5.8kg.  Hopefully this will give a good performance boost in terms of acceleration, along with a more responsive throttle response.

The flywheel bolts were shortened so that the same amount of thread (15mm) showed through the rear of the flywheel as in the original Focus installation (the lightened Pinto flywheel is thinner - no prizes there).  All good so far.  However, the edges of the bolts clash with the tapered edge of the flywheel.  Also the socket fouls on the flywheel.

Plan B was to use another, original length, set of flywheel bolts and use washers as spacers.  Two washers were needed for each bolt to compensate for the thickness of metal removed from the flywheel.  The washers nearest the flywheel needed filing down (from 5mm to 3mm) on one edge.  Okay, the edge was not there until I filed it!

Flywheel bolts installed with thread lock.  Each was marked to show that it had been torqued up to the correct value.  In the centre is the spigot bearing fitted.  Pushed in just flush with the outer edge.  It would've gone in further, but here it should provide maximum support for the gearbox input shaft.

Fitting the clutch using an old borrowed gearbox input shaft as a centring tool (Thanks Pete).  This made it very easy to get the perfect alignment of the clutch plate.

Assembly of Rear Suspension

The wishbones were all fitted with the 'weld marks' to the rear of the car. You would then expect the damper/spring to just bolt on between the chassis and the upper wish bone. If only it were that easy. The manufacturing tolerances or the design of the chassis jig don't allow this. Only after disassembly and reassembly in different sequences did I get it all to fit together. In the end I fitted the two wishbones to the upright, but not to the chassis. Then the damper/spring was fitted. Followed by the upper wishbone to chassis and finally the lower wishbone to chassis.

If you look sideways on you will see that the damper/spring fits, but only at a slight angle. In this view you can also see the spacer/crush tube that had to be cut to length and fitted between the two mounting lugs on the top of the upright.


Before fitting all the washers and nuts I followed Jim Dudley's guidance for setting up the rear suspension geometry (camber). To do this the shorter front dampers were installed on the rear (yes more disassembly and reassembly). The shorter front dampers allow the suspesion to hang in the position it will be in when the weight is on the wheels. With the car level on the floor a 1 metre length of square tube was clamped vertically to the upright and then a 900mm spirit level used to determine +1 degrees camber from the vertical. Using the small angle approximation it was detemined that a delflection of 13.5mm was required. This is for road use, more camber would be needed for track use. The rose joints on the lower wishbones were screwed in and out until the required deflection was maintained.

With the rear dampers/springs refitted all nyloc nuts and washers were fitted. Washers were fitted either side of the lower wishbone rosejoints. The nuts were kept loose and will be fully tightened when the cars weight is on the wheels.