Auff! Finally Helga is back on her tires. And I'm very sore. Some of those suspension bolts require quite a bit of strength to torque correctly.
Drivers side axle has been replaced, as has the drivers side strut and spring.
That big nut on the end of the axle is pretty tight already but will need to really torque it down once the weight is on the wheel.
While she was up on the stands, I also changed the oil and put the exhaust pipe on.
I'm pretty pleased with how well the pipe fit... the outlet is closer to the bumper than the stock muffler, which required a little bit of a trim of the valance. But this is what I wanted, with the hope that the soot would be ejected further back and thereby allow less to deposit on the rear of the car.
The other thing I did while the car was up is put a belly pan from rear axle back to the rear bumper. Sorry, no pics at the moment. It was a late decision; not something I'd planned to do originally. I looked at the area, had a nice big sheet of coroplast, had an idea about how to secure the coroplast, and decided to give it a try. We will see if it helps.
After the underneath stuff was all done, I put Helga on her tires, tightened the axle nut, checked the other nuts & bolts, and went for a test drive. She sits noticeably lower and feels pretty tight, not bad at all. The exhaust sounds fine too. Definitely can hear the turbo better, but can't tell a difference at all at cruising speed.
Andrzej - I liked your taped-on cardboard! It probably helped quite a bit. I would do it too if I could get away with it. I think it is a good opportunity for additional FE gain, but it will have to wait until I can put some time into it so I can make it look nice. Maybe for next year, when my goal can be a 75mpg or 80mpg tank?
Ausias - I'm also interested to know how you lowered the Cd. For me, the 5th gear swap was an easy decision... I already had to remove the transmission to replace the clutch; it was maybe 15 extra minutes to replace the 5th gear... very easy! For the 6th gear kit, it can be done without removing the transmission, which is why I like the idea... but for right now it is only in my thoughts... no plans yet.