Front Suspension Upgrades

After LSPR, Sean put the car back on jackstands and basically removed all of the suspension. Obviously, we wanted to fix the wheel-falling-off issue, but we figured that while we're in there, we can do a little better.

First order of business, new wheel bearings up front, super long press-in wheel studs all around and slightly larger MkIII brakes. These mods are pretty straightforward except for the fact that those bearings are a giant pain in the butt to remove.

The other change was some major mods to the control arms. Reason #1 is that the big squishy rubber bushing on the control arm's rear mount tears unacceptably easily. Reason #2 is that we don't want to break them, and it sounds like that's a thing that happens. To address these problems, we replaced the aforementioned bushing with a big spherical bearing, and then welded reinforcements all over the arm. Thanks to Matt Bushore, a fellow Ann Arbor rallyist, of Bent Mettle Racing for ideas.