HOW TO: Suspension calibration jig

HOW TO: Suspension calibration jig


First of all, don’t get excited his isn’t going to be earth shattering! :biggrin:

This morning I was making my first ever attempt at shock absorbers and suspension bits ‘n pieces out of tube, rod etc for my latest project.

When I reached the gluing stage, I thought it would nice/useful to have some kind of jig that would ensure that left/right shocks are always identical length so that I don’t have issues later with ride height.

This is what I came up with – it took me about 30mins to put it together (including looking for useful left over bits around the workshop). I thought I’d share it since I haven’t seen anything like this before and I am always using other peoples’ ideas.

Mods – feel free to do anything you want with this including trashing it,

MATERIALS:
Some rigid foam board (don’t know what it’s called but it is frequently used as a packing material as it is light but stiff and strong), any old bolt and nut, knife, CA glues, anything suitable to make feet (I was going to use 4 nuts but then I found these plastic caps used to hide the tops of screws)

http://img296.echo.cx/img296/5559/jigmaterials5zd.jpg


BASIC SHAPE:
Here you can see the basic shape of the 2 part construction- the larger base and a sliding “plunger” mechanism that defines the variable length of the part you are making. The size was arbitrary, the only thing I took care of was to cut at perfect right-angles in strategic places (these are marked in a later picture). I used my Dremmel router ending to cut the channel (badly!! :rolleyes: ) where the holding screw will slide along. All aprts were just glued with regular CA.

http://img296.echo.cx/img296/803/jigparts019lo.jpg


Here you can see the underside. I attached “feet” to make sure the bolt has space on the underside and can slide easily.

http://img296.echo.cx/img296/5331/jigfeet4kb.jpg



COMPLETED:

Here’s the completed jig. I scored some parallel but unevenly spaced lines to provided a basic visual aid for alignment and “washed” them with my dirty finger :biggrin: to make them visible.


http://img296.echo.cx/img296/2053/jigcomplete3ov.jpg


Here you can see it in use. Epoxy inside the tube, insert the rod, put it into the jig, use tweezers to pull out the rod so it butts up to both sides of the jig and wait ‘till dry!

http://img79.echo.cx/img79/9351/jiginuse2sd.jpg


As I said the jig took me 30 minutes from decision to make it to using it.


Hope that someone might find this useful.

Stevenski

Nice tool you got there, I'll use it for exhausts, coilovers, etc. :bigthumb:

wonderful invention, cheers!!

Nice idea. I'm sure some of the stratch builders in here will be thankfull for this.