What I failed to mention in my previous post is that when I dismantled the second of the two springs I committed the cardinal sin ............ I was not concentrating and I failed to restrain the spring as I undid the central bolt!!! There was an almighty bang, orange dust everywhere and spring leaves leaping everywhere. I was lucky, I got my knuckles rapped, literally and metaphorically and no more. Somewhat painful, but no real damage!!! I hope I have learnt my lesson.
Anyway, all the leaves are cleaned of paint, rust and crud and most are now in primer, so I'm getting on.
I have been thinking about the reassembly, particularly silentbloc bushes. The rear end of the springs pivot on a pair of double needle roller bearings that are no longer available, so I will use silentblocs ..... this is a common way out of the problem. Then we come to the front end. A standard size silentbloc is used, but and it's a big but, the way Lancia designed the bush housing it is not possible to clamp the ends of the inner steel sleeve, to prevent it from rotating, by tightening the through bolt. Thus it is possible that the rotation will occur about the through bolt rather than, as it is designed to do, through distortion in the rubber annulus. To get over this problem the inner steel sleeve of the silenbloc is serrated on one end and locks with a similarly serrated steel bush (part 31-5740 on TAV 16) which in turn locks onto the silentbloc housing. I am having 2 silentblocks modified with the serrations at a local machine shop. Price to be advised when the work is done. I will post the price and comment on the work when I get the bushes back in a week or two. It may be that other Gussie owners will want to consider this. In the attached photograph the serrated bushes should be, of course, reversed.
Andy
