Above is empty space in which the suspension for this 2000 roadster used to reside.  It will return after some cleaning and adjustment.  Chip was looking into some information the owner provided about the harshness of the ride and discovered that the adjustable Konis on the car were set full-stiff… making the shocks reluctant to rebound once compressed.  Let’s take a look at the parts off of the car in the picture below.

The lower and upper A-arms are there next to the orange Koni.  Something else we shall remedy is that the ball joints on each A-arm should have rubber boots around them to hold the grease.  We’ll get those replaced to protect the ball joints.

Continuing on his tour of the undercarriage, Chip observed an oil leak at the front of the oil pan.  Take a look at this picture and you may spot the problem.

This is the front of the oil pan looking from underneath the car.  The second bolt-hole from the left is empty.  That’s most unhelpful.  The hole is filled with Permatex.  We’ll get the pan off and replace any of the studs that need replacing.

Still left to do are some improvements to the ignition.  The car has an electronic distributor on it, but it’s currently coupled to an older coil.  In a nutshell, it’s a 12 volt distributor connected to a coil that in reality only reaches about 8 volts.  The end result is that the ignition is not getting the full benefit of that nice electronic 12 volt distributor.  We’ll remedy that also.

These drivability improvements should render a noticeably better ride,  encouraging the owner to keep it out and about as much as possible.