Handbag Legerra Developments

[James Doulton]

After getting the Legerra home a few weeks ago, I have been using it as my daily commute. I have done a few things to it to 'improve' it:

1) I have removed the centre console because I could not take my foot off the clutch with it in place because I have to get my knee next to the steering wheel and my calf was hard against the edge of the console. I have still got to find a place for the dials and switches that were there. When removing the heater controls I found that the outer sheaths of the cables were not fixed, so moving the levers did nothing. I don't think that the heater control works at all. So that is another job on the to-do list before next winter.

2) I have moved the main instrument cluster up about 2 inches so that I can actually see the majority of the dial face of the speedo and the rev counter. The speedo is badly out of calibration - the mile-o-meter is currently registering about  3% low but the speedo is over 25% low. How can that be? It is a Czech dial, not the original Ford one so I guess that it must have always been wrong. I just have to remember that it is 900rpm per 20mph in fifth. Moving the instruments higher meant cutting the dashboard to clear the speedo drive. I now have a gap of about 2 inches below the instruments where I could site the dials and switches from the centre console.

3) I have removed the exhaust and welded up the holes where it seems to have leaked ever since it was fitted. I welded some patches made from bits of bike tube. It was quite difficult with my arc welder but I eventually managed to fill the holes that I made too. The exhaust is still loud and tiresome - it sounds really good when I rant it, but for the other 99% of the time it is an irritation. The local stainless exhaust place will make a bespoke system for £330.

4) I have replaced the original 13" cobra alloys that had 205/65 tyres with 15" wheels from a Ford Focus with 195/60 tyres. They only just fit in the rear arches and one touches the body occasionally over big bumps. The wheels were replaced because the old tyres had very poor grip in either the dry or the wet. The use of larger wheels increases the gearing about 11% and, more importantly, increases the ground clearance over local speed bumps - the exhaust used to touch before.

5) I have removed the radiator in order to cure a leak caused by the way that the electric fan was fitted using bolts through the radiator matrix. The fan had been moving up and down and wore a hole in the front of two of the cores. As a temporary bodge, I fixed it with Araldite. I'm going to weld up a frame to hold the fan in place and fix it on the radiator mounting bolts. I have bought a new in-line thermostatic switch for the top hose.

6) I had noticed that the car sometimes pulled to the left under breaking. I have now found the culprit - a leaking damper. It seems that the leaking fluid drips onto the disk when the car is parked and the brakes pull the first time that they are used. I will have to get the unit off the car to measure it to get a new pair. I don't know whether to change the springs too.

I still need to sort out the seat and I would like to move it back a couple of inches further but I think it is tight against the bodywork.

I also want to get or make a hard top or targa top - I can't be doing with struggling to get the soft top on and off all of the time, with all of those pesky poppers and the stiff locking pins at the front.

[Paul Sheridan]

Mr Adams you must get a phone with a bigger screen, or go to spec savers ....... (ebay item 330643179185 £24.95)   :-))))))))

[Dave Adams]

Where did you get it????? And how much ?

[James Doulton]

Tonight I fitted a new blower to my heater. The old one made a lot of noise and had very little effect except to my battery voltage, so I think it must have something wrong with it. I couldn't face removing the heater so I just fitted an inline blower into the 3" flexible hose from the front of the car (ebay item 330643179185). The new blower only takes 2.5amps but is rated at 130cfm - you can certainly feel the air flow, so it should clear the screen better when the weather gets damp again. Today I drove to and from work with the top down so I will try the same thing tomorrow.

[James Doulton]

My preparations for Exeter are going well: the trip to Portishead and back (~30 miles round trip on the motorway) was all successful with the car feeling relaxed, the 'cruise control' working nicely. I have also bought a silly little fan heater that goes in the cigarette lighter socket because I noticed that when I turn on my normal Escort heater fan then my voltmeter drops to about 11v but with the silly little heater then I am showing 13v.

I hope that I can drive down to Exeter with the top down as the poppers don't stay done up anyway if I go much over 60mph. I have a flying helmet and a bomber jacket so I should be warm enough as long as it is dry. I turned the radio on for the first time coming back from Portishead and it worked really well - it is very loud. I can hear it over the cherrybomb exhaust easily, I haven't tried with the flying helmet on though!

I had intended to polish the car today, ready for next week, but it rained and so I went to Halfords and bought a big tool store on wheels instead. Hopefully that will help me to sort out my stuff - I lost over an hour when fitting my discs because I couldn't find a 15mm socket of all things.

[James Doulton]

After fitting hub-centric spacers and replacing the front discs and calipers, I now have no wobbles on the steering at 50mph and no shaking under braking. It is such a nice change. I will take the car down the Motorway to Portishead tonight and if everything goes well then the car will be ready for the trip to the Exeter Kit Car show.

[Adrian Southgate]

I agree, however, the forces acting on the wheel bearing originate from the point where the outer rim is joined to the centre of the wheel and for evey inch of negative offset you add more leverage.on the bearing. Also, when you turn the wheel it causes the point of rotation to change and the wheel begins to describe an arc rather than turning in one spot, this is what causes the front of the car to move from side to side when you turn the wheels when stationary.

[James Doulton]

The offset is the distance from the centre line of the wheel (i.e. the centre of the tyre) from the mounting surface. So in the case of my wheels, and most modern wheels, the mounting surface is offset to the outside of the of the wheel. But our Ford suspension is designed to have the wheel centre line flush with the mounting surface. Therefore we need to undo the offset to bring the wheel back to the correct position.

[Adrian Southgate]

0 offset wheels in anything other than 'weller' style are pretty rare, Nobody makes alloy's with a decent offset anymore and second hand ones are like hens teeth. The only other alternative is split rims which work out to £1000 a set of four.

Spacers are the only alternative if you want to use alloys.

[Adrian Southgate]

Wheel bearing quip = james Leggy.   

Grip quip = my Sierra, I didn't miss that point at all.

Have another look at your theory about spacers James. I always thought the load from the rim was centred through the 'spoked' part of the wheel and if that was offset from the bearing it would induce more stress in the bearing compared to a zero offset wheel. Just a matter of leverage.

[James Doulton]

No extra stress on the wheel bearings - the spacers only undo the effect of the wheel offset so that the wheel centre line is where it was meant to be.