Wing Commander Spry

So who or what the fuck is Wing Commander Spry? Spry was a character from a magazine called Air Clues, a publication written and issued by the RAF's Directorate of Flight Safety, as the saying goes, back in the day. I'm fairly sure that it doesn't exist any longer but essentially it was one of the many vehicles for promoting flight safety in the RAF. Back when I was a mere boy I used to particularly like the 'I Learned About Flying From That' articles. Pilots stepping forward to admit their mistakes for the benefit of others. This was later expanded to include lessons about engineering too and was devoured by many a liney and techie as they sat in trap one (always the most popular) and wiled away a 12 hour shift or took a well-earned 'rest' between AF (After Flight) and BF (work it out) checks.

Classic RAF wing commander look!

Amongst the reasons for writing this blog, one was to expand upon some of the thinking behind the decisions regarding what I planned to do; the philosophy behind the decisions. Another was to point out some of the pitfalls in doing certain jobs on the CTR, things that persons more conversant in this type of work don't always experience. Okay, or put another way, those less inept. So where does Spry come into all this? More later.

I had a window of opportunity on Tuesday 23rd December and it opened at about 1pm and would close around sunset, so around 3 hours later depending upon cloud cover (this bit is just like Air Clues - explain how the weather began to close in and build the tension). Just time I figured to swap out the ageing OEM rear anti-roll bar for the shiny new JDM version from Tegiwa and replace the drop links with non-standard Hardrace ones from Area Motorsport.

Much less fiddly than their OEM counterparts thanks to the
14mm lock nut as opposed to the 5mm fuck around allen head.

I call it a window of opportunity because I never feel that I have enough time to do anything these days. Most of that time pressure is self-induced but like the hapless pilots who regularly featured in Air Clues, time pressure was an occupational hazard and is the first lesson - don't be tempted to rush any job let alone one which has safety related aspects. Proof...

Okay, so it's hardly losing both engines on approach but the point remains...

Anyway, this was going to be the perfect practice run for when I did the more difficult work on the front end which would involve not only the roll bar and drop link change but also tie-rod ends, ball joints and front lower arm bushes.

Gratuitous Civic on axle stands shot. It's not actually resting on the wheels but
I put them under the car as a secondary support figuring that when people
say it is quite a light car they don't mean when it's lying on top of you. 

So car up on axle stands, I started with the 4 bolts that hold the roll bar to the rear of the car. I sprayed them in PlusGas first which really wasn't necessary as they are very accessible and come off a piece of piss.

One 12mm socket and these 4 babies come right out. Important to
note the orientation of the bar at this point. Very effing important.

So the easy bit done I moved onto the drop links (also known as stabilizer links). The drop links attach to the roll bar via one of the ball joint threaded ends and the other ball joint threaded end fits to the rear lower or trailing arm (which is at this point attached to the car and will remain that way). They are right and left specific so are not interchangeable. You have to get the right one on the right side...and the left one on the left side. I meant the correct one on the correct side. Simple thing to do obviously is to match the new roll bar to the old one once it is off and then fit the drop links to the new one to match. Simple thing Pete. Simple thing. The main point I want to make though is that as it makes sense to change the drop links you only need to detach the threaded portion where it attaches to the rear lower arm as the rest will come away from the car with the old roll bar. Obvious but worth pointing out as it can be a bastard to remove the nut.

See. 

So why is the nut sometimes a tad difficult to remove? Well on the OEM drop link the threaded portion has an allen head insert and it is this which you use to prevent the ball joint from rotating when you are trying to remove the nut with a spanner (14mm in this case). Thus...

It's not stupidly cramped underneath the arches but it is a little awkward
and the nuts on both sides of the car, having started to turn, albeit with
some pressure, then went very tight causing fatal damage to my
cheap Chinese allen key. So out came the hacksaw.

Problem is, after years of abuse from road grime, the nut can get very tight and even though I used PlusGas I didn't give it very long to do its magic. And whilst tight nuts (fnar, fnar) can be overcome (yurkk, yurkk) with leverage, it needs a 14mm spanner and unfortunately mine is quite a short one (kyuk, kyuk). It was also extremely hard (hooo, hooo) to get a lever under the arch and around the lower arm. Also, I wager that even the best quality allen key would struggle given how tight I found both the drop link nuts on my car to be. The allen key I used initially was clearly crap though because it twisted under the strain and consequently rounded out the head after which the nut was never coming off without resorting to violence. So even though I should know better by now, get the best fitting allen key you can find and the longest 14mm spanner too (within reason clearly) to give you the best possible chance of removing the nut using engineers tools rather than builders ones.

...like these ffs...

So anyway I resorted to Hannibal Lecter's toolbox and hacksawed one off and drilled the other one out. Why? Because the nearside one I managed to unscrew quite a way so had exposed enough thread to get a hacksaw on it, albeit one that fits the end of a Stanley knife-like handle rather than one on a frame because there isn't enough room for a full size one - you can though get a junior in there. On the offside the bolt barely released at all so as there was little of the ball joint shank exposed I decided to drill through the centre. This didn't take too long as access was pretty good and I had some fairly sharp bits. I went slightly narrower than the diameter of the threaded portion and drilled beyond the nut. Once there it was just a matter of tapping the nut and it sheared off quite easily.

Proof if proof were needed of the quite easily sheared off threaded bit...

Yet more proof.

Bored yet?

So you can see from the photos that light had yet to stop play but Jack our dog was feeling a little poorly and so a 5pm trip to the Vet beckoned. I can do this I thought. I can complete this job and then test the improved and enhanced handling properties of my Civic Type R. And I did. I completed it around 7pm under the glow of our outside light and a head torch. Well done me. Proof.

Wait a goddam, cotton-picking minute. That doesn't look like the
one in the 5th photo of this blog. It's fucking upside down...

And it was. Rushing to get finished for a trip to the Vet I placed the two ARBs side-by-side and was sure they matched...look.

...but they don't. If I had taken more time to flip the new one around
180 degrees from left to right (or right to left) I would have seen a
far better match and fitted it correctly first time. 

So my wife indulged me sufficiently after our trip to the Vet to go back out in the dark and take the whole lot apart. That included removing the wheels and jacking the car up again although not in that order. And it was a much quicker job of course and completed in less than an hour. 64 million dollar question though. Did I test drive it with the ARB the wrong way up?

Yes I did and this is what my head looked like when I got home...

So, embarrassed and ashamed I figured I would just keep schtum about the whole incident but then I thought of Spry and one of my reasons for writing. It was a silly mistake but time pressure, inexperience and too many distractions including stopping every five minutes to take photos and run VT were not helpful (although the photo of the bar on the right way up clearly could have been). And maybe, just maybe I could prevent not only somebody else from making the same mistake, but also, and more importantly, prevent them from a future life lived as a Sontaran.

POSTSCRIPT: I took the car for a spin early on Christmas Eve and the upgrade was fucking magic. Worth every penny. Much more positive turn in and what feels like a marginal improvement in acceleration as the car seems to squat less at the rear. Certainly less body scuttle at the rear too although much of that might have been down to replacing some very worn out drop links. And what did I learn about Civic Type R restoration from that? Fuck all. Because I never learn. Oh and Jack is fine.

Happy Christmas Jack and Tarn.

And the video can be found here - http://youtu.be/o6qLGOPpHow

Enjoy :)