Subframe too Far Forward- what have i done wrong now?

[timedwards]

Does anybody by any chance know where I have gone wrong this time? I have the rear legs of the subframe bolted on and all was going well then when I raised the front to bolt the vee mounts in they are too far forward. Do I just need to lever it back somehow (although I don't think that would be easy) or has it got something to do with the way I pressed the subframe bushes in. I studied the photos I took of the old bushes as they are not centrally 'holed' and thought I had it about right. Here are a couple of pics so you can see what I am talking about. I am hoping I don't have to drag it off the car again and re-bush Here are a couple of pics so you know what I am talking about.

P.S. it is too far forward the other side but not by quite so much if that helps and I presume there is no particular orientation to the vee mounts

Thanks Tim

[Brakebuster]

i would loosen the other v-mount bolts to the frame to allow some wiggle room ,

then gently pry the mounts into place and grab the threads , then jack into place, do not pull up by the threads, once located tighten everything up

its the only way i can think of for your situation

BB

[timedwards]

Thanks BB I will give it a careful go as I don't want to snap the bolts off in the subframe. I can't believe it's that far out really. Do you think it is the subframe bushes? If so how did Jaguar know the angle to put the bushes in in the first place so it all ligned up? I have just done it as best I could by eye (should have gone to specsavers!). By the pic I put up of the bushes pressed in do they look about right to you?

Now I see why the quote for the work was so expensive, you can die compressing the springs and if you jiggle the frame too much you may get crushed under the car as it falls off the axle stands. Next time I am buying a bicycle

[Andy P]

Hi Tim,it does sound like the bushes are not quite right.
I know this is from the xj8 but I'm told they are very similar as are the ones in the xj40,are there any markings on yours like the one in the photo.

If you would like the whole document,P.M. me your email address and I will be more than happy to send them to you.
By the way it looks great Tim.
Hope this helps a bit.
Good Luck.
Andy

[timedwards]

Cheers Andy and for sending the whole document too. The bush for the x300/40 is a bit different from the x308 so the indent (3) is the same on the housing but I am not sure what I should have lined up with this on the bush. below is a pic of the correct bush for the x300 and I have added an arrow to a possible 'location tang (A)'. Do you think this is the correct way to line up this bush?

Thanks again
Tim

[Andy P]

Hi Tim,that seems to be the way to go,I found a couple of photo's online of the bush fitted.

Don't know if you can an idea of the position of the bush from them.
If it was me I would line up the location tang on the bush with the indentation on the housing.
The only reference to it that I can find is that they say mark the housing with a center punch in line with the tang before pressing out.
Before you press them out again can you see if the bush was lined up with mark would it make the cross member further back or forward depending on which way it needs to go.
Anyway I will send you the other documents later today,
Good Luck.
Andy

[timedwards]

Well I am no further on with this except to say the subframe is back in the garage Here are pics of the cutouts in the bush housing but I don't see how they can be used to line anything up as the they are at the bottom on the offside and the top on the nearside.

Here is a pic showing the vee mount raised in place with the bush hole not lined up.

I have tried wriggle room and also vee mount in first then bush. It seems to me that if you have pressed them in wrong then you are stuffed no matter what you do. So back to my question; how you do line up the bushes in the first place so that the distance between the vee mount spigots and the bush hole is the correct distance apart? Why on earth did Jaguar not just put the hole in the middle?? The XJ8 has clear line up markings so what do those of us with x300's or XJ40's do?

Any and all suggestions appreciated

Thanks Tim

[Popsjag]

Hi Tim.

Apologises for not joining in sooner, but I have just returned from a 2 week jolly to Cornwall with the X300 and caravan!

Looking at the position of your bush (!) I would say that you have pressed them in at 2 O'clock (imaginary line from centre of bush through centre of offset mounting hole). They should be at 1 o'clock, viewed from the outside.

[timedwards]

Thanks Steve

I will now have to dismantle everything on the subframe (including springs first of all!) so not the best news really. Fortunately my neighbour owns a breakers yard but I can't even give it to him without any wheels on

Tim

[timedwards]

Well a big thank you to everyone who has helped me with advice both on this thread and also off it. Life and holidays etc has meant that it has taken up until now to sort it but I am glad to say the subframe is finally back on the car This would not have been possible without the advice given, all of which has been helpful not only for this job for further work on this car too. A big thank you to Steve who rang me up and suggested constructing a homemade press!! I would never have considered this in a million years - so simple yet effective. I think the whole process of getting out of this mess is worth detailing in this thread for the benefit of other novices.

N.B. Most important of all before banging out the old bushes mark the housings up e.g. with a punch so that when the time comes to put it back on the car you avoid all this heartache! Obvious to the 'weathered' enthusiast

(I will post these up in pieces as I have a tendency to lose the lot if I mess up when uploading the pics)

[timedwards]

Two laser cut 6mm discs (a bit excessive perhaps and a pig to drill by hand - as ever GO SLOW AND USE PLENTY OF LUBRICATION!!) from ebay. Larger diameter than the bushes.
High tensile threaded bar (just thin enough to go through middle of bushes) and two washers and bolts. N.B. these bolts were o.k. but I used bigger ones in the end also high tensile. Actually a lot of pressure is not required to push these bushes in/out.

This 'receptacle' for the bush was needed because having pressed a pair of brand new Jag bushes in the frame at £50 I was desperate to get them out in-tact to have yet another attempt. It was square tube from ebay that I cut to slightly wider than the with of a bush with my angle grinder.

N.B. the old hacksawed and burned through bush had been retained by me for some odd reason but made a perfect press for pushing the good bushes out. Obviously one bush is being replaced in the housing by another rather ugly one but the clever thing is that since this one is cut through it is easy work to tap it out with a hammer and punch. Result=£50 saved. The door handle thingies are there because the metal tube passing through the bush protrudes and will bring proceedings to a halt when it hits the plate at the other end when being pressed out.

[timedwards]

So now I had a subframe with no bushes in so back to square one. Well, in the end I decided to jack the subframe up into situ' with it sat on my trusty trolly. I jacked it up so that the vee mount lugs were firmly pressed up into the holes in the car body as below. N.B. the shim is only on the passenger side on my car and I have been told it was used for alignment correction. This was interesting as I thought I may have had one missing on the other side.

Now I jacked up the arms of the subframe into situ' and with the metal support unbolted and removed I passed the bolt through the holes and through the bush to align the hole in the bush correctly. I marked the bush and housing (taped) and did this for both sides.

I managed to press the one bush in with the subframe lowered a little but the other one wanted to go in on the 'cock' so I decided to drop it entirely and get it into the garage to do it more easily.

Suffice it to say that both bushes were pressed in and the subframe was hoisted and attached both by the bushes and the vee mounts the next day -hoorah!

It's worth mentioning here that Steve had said to get the vee mount lugs in situ' first then the rear arms bolted through after. He was bang on and even then I still needed to use a breaker bar on top of the bush housing to ease the subframe a smidge forward as I think unless extremely fortunate and 110% accurate there will be a slight nudge/wiggle required. Ever so slight though so I could push the bolts through so pleased with the overall result

Thanks again to everyone for your help, encouragement and advice. I got there in the end thanks to you all

[J44EAG]

Well done. I appreciate the difficulties.

The early S-type lower front one piece wishbone can also cause bush fitting consternation. The front bush has an 8mm tube off set and is not central in the wishbone register. To change that front bush easily and ensure the new one went in in an identical orientation, I used masking tape on the wishbone together with straight edges and a black pen. Once I had datum marks in place, dot punching took place on the old bush to coincide with my pen maks on the tape on the wishbone. The old bush placed upon the new one allowed punch marks to be transfered to the new bush. The new bush was then fitted using my bench press and universal mandrell kit found on ebay. This is a kit of high tensile rods, nuts, ball bearing thrust washers and a variety of differing sized heavy copper mandrells. The kit costs around £100 and can be used in situe with the threaded rods or with a bench press.

My press and mandrell kit investment was about £400 in total. Obviously if you are only doing limited amounts of bush bashing, then the expenditure is hard to justify. What it does do though is make light work of bush changes. I take the view if you own a Jaguar and do DIY maintenance, this is one of the best and most essential bits of kit you could ever have. As most here know, mine has given me fantastic service and I wouldn`t be without it. See this thread for details of "Brutus the Bench Press" in action. http://www.jec.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=200&t=8040

Glad you got it all together again. Not nice if you get stuck.

Mike K

[timedwards]

Hi Mike

Just searched for universal mandrell kit on ebay but come up with nothing. Do you have a link by any chance so I can have a look. I used my shop press to re-bush everything but then once the springs, wishbones etc were on there was no way I could get it up to the press again due to the weight and height so took Steve's advice and made the little 'press' or I suppose one piece mandrell kit. I was relieved when it worked and now I can crack on with it again. It was a bit of a nightmare but I have learned a few lessons from it! I don't want to say it too loud but would love to get this on the road by late Spring/Summer. Then I can say hi to a few people at a show or two and it will be a rolling resto' to finish tidying it up.

Cheers Tim

[J44EAG]

Try this link, Tim. This is similar if not the same as my kit. Have done S-type, XF and X350 suspensions using this tooling.

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/SILENT-BLOCK-BUS ... SwY7pZuT7e

Mike