Now that the chassis is protected with paint, we can begin the process of re-assembly.  We want the car in a "roller" condition as soon as possible so we begin with assembly and installation of the front and rear suspension arms.  That's followed by installation of the rear "mid board" hubs and the front spindles and hubs.  Once those are all installed, we can bolt on some wheels.  We're awaiting the arrival of our suspension springs; once they arrive, we'll install them on our Bilstein "coil overs" bolt them on and get the chassis off the jack stands. 

Securing the right side Lower Control Arm

Installing the right side steering spindle

Right Front Suspension installed

Right Front wheel hub installed, axle nut ready to be tightened and secured

Right Front suspension assembled, ready for wheel/tire and shocks

Wheel and Tire installed, just need shocks and springs installed

Right rear Trailing Arm installed

"Mid Board" Hub ready to install
This combines the rear wheel bearings, wheel mounting flange, brake rotor and CV in one "bolt-on"package

Right side hub installed and ready for a wheel/tire

Temporary wheels/tires installed
These wheels/tires are some of our 5/1600 car spares and are only installed to allow us to easily move the car around.  When we get closer to completion, we'll install the permanent set.

Front suspension assembled, awaiting spring carriers and bypass shocks

Our Bilstein "coil over" shocks
These are the "coil overs" for all 4 positions; once we receive and install the springs, we'll mount them on the car and no longer need jack stands to support the car - it'll be a true "roller" at that point.  Before we can do that, we need to modify these to be "spring carriers" only; they're currently "coil over shocks" and we want all the damping to provided by the bypass shocks that will be installed.  That's a simple modification - disassemble them, remove the shim stacks from each, then reassemble.   We haven't ordered our bypass shocks yet; we'll probably wait until we're a little further along in the build. 

Rear Coil-Over piston and shim stack

Front Coil-Over shock piston with shim stack as received
We don't want the coil-overs to provide any suspension damping so the shim stacks have to go.  It's an easy process once the shock is disassembled; just remove the nut that secures the piston/shim stack, remove the shims, add washers to fill the gap then reinstall the nut. 

Shims and Piston from a rear coil-over

Front "coil-carrier" reassembled without a "shim stack"
We modified the front coil carrier spring seats to eliminate a small interference issue with the lower control arms - they're ready to mount now.  The black "slider" that separates the two springs can be installed "short side up" or "long side up" to optimize where the spring rate changes in conjunction with the adjustable "stop ring".

Front spring carriers installed and supporting the car
The spring carriers are supporting the weight of the front end at this point - we haven't set any pre-load to adjust the ride height yet.  Again, the camera distorts the apparent camber and alignment of the front wheels - it looks right in person but we haven't done any "fine tuning" yet. 

Front coil over reservoirs mounted

Front bypass shock installed
We had been concerned about possibly needing to modify the upper control arms for bypass tube clearance but Bilstein bypass shocks allow the installer to "clock" the upper mount as necessary.  By rotating the upper cap a few degrees, we were able to avoid having to modify the control arm.

Front suspension complete
The front suspension is now completely assembled and ready for limit straps to be purchased and installed.  We need to measure for the limit straps next; we'll want to support the front end at "full droop" when we measure to ensure that we don't unnecessarily restrict down travel while still protecting the suspension from over-extension.

Left rear coil carrier installed

Right rear coil carrier and bypass shock
The car is now supporting it's own weight - all four spring carriers are installed and the jack stands removed.  Finally, we have a true "roller" chassis and can begin fabricating and installing all the other systems; we'll start with the primary driver controls (steering and brakes) and build outward from there.