Sunday 27 March 2011

Front Suspension, Hubs and Brakes

Here are the very sorry looking Cortina uprights, discs and calipers bought from ebay.


These were dismantled and the discs discarded.  The uprights just needed the rust removing with a wire brush attachment in the drill before they could be masked and painted with Hammerite.


After cleaning the hubs I attempted to remove the outer bearing races.  Unlike the rears, which were easy to remove, these would not shift.  The task made harder by the fact that they need to be pushed from the opposite site, i.e. a tool was needed to get through the centre hole of the hub, from the other side.  In the end it looked my efforts were going to risk damaging the hubs, so I admitted defeat and took them down to my local engineering shop.  They removed the races the same afternoon for a small amount of beer tokens.

Here is one of the hubs with the new outer bearing races fitted and the wheel studs repaced for longer versions.  These are to accommodate the alloy wheels instead of steel.


The hubs were then painted.  After fitting new discs the centre of the disc was masked for painting, the part that is not swept by the brake pads.  The idea here is to prevent this from going rusty and looking unsightly behind the alloy wheels.  Time will tell if this area gets too hot for normal Hammerite paint.


The bolts that fix the discs to the Cortina hubs normally have locking tabs fitted.  Two were missing.  I fabricated two new ones from some thin sheet steel by tracing round one of the originals, cutting with a jigsaw and then finally filing in the vice, with the new and old clamped together as a guide.  Spot the difference?


Hub and disc ready for fitting.


Upright fitted to car.  Upper ball joint not fully torqued until the camber has been set.  This will be done at a later stage.


Hub assembly fitted to upright, using a new wheel bearing kit.  This was then torqued to the correct amount, as per the Cortina Haynes manual.  As one of the hub grease caps was missing I bought two new aluminimum ones from Rally Design.  They were not cheap, but are very well made.  Shame they won't be seen behind the centre of the alloy wheels.


I entertained the idea of renewing the calipers, but in the end it seemed too much effort when new ones can be bought from Rally Design for a very competitve price.  The old ones will go back on ebay.  Here are the new calipers fitted, along with a set of new EBC Green Stuff pads.


All complete, barring the fitting of the brake flexi hose.  This can only be done once the body shell is on.

Sunday 13 March 2011

Visit to Tiger, Revised Avon Body

Yesterday I took a trip to Tiger to collect some more shiny parts to bolt to my chassis.  While there I got the chance to look over a (nearly) finished Avon that was fitted with the newly revised body.  I was very impressed with the changes and I am fortunate that I have not bought my body yet so I will be able to get this new shape.

As you can see in the pictures there is now a proper boot locker with a locking lid.  Inside the boot is just a continuation of the single piece body - nothing to fabricate, just the hinges to mount!  No cutting is needed around the mounts for the roll bar either.  The fuel filler has been moved to the top (from the rear panel) and this now means that the inside of the boot space does not need cutting.  There is a revised alloy fuel tank too to fit this body - I think it is just filler neck moved further to the side.  The fuel tank is very neatly attached from below the car.  Fitting a braced roll bar might be more of a challenge than previously as the diagonal braces would come down where the filler now is.  I will rethink whether I want to fit a braced roll bar initially.

Apparently the non-symmetrical wheel arches should now be fixed too.