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.

Futher Modifcation of Suspension Uprights

The front and rear dampers were fouling the brackets on the rear uprights as well as the lower front wishbones.  The 'corners' were filed round and then painted with Hammerite.  Care was taken to remove the minimum amount of metal, so as not to damage the structural integrity of these components.

Rear Suspension Upright Modification

The Sierra donor brake back plates do not fit flush with the Tiger provided rear suspension uprights. The extremeties of the flat angled plate foul with the curved bulges on the back face of the brake back plates.

A small amount of metal has to be removed from two places on the rear uprights. The areas to be removed can be marked out with a permanent marker pen with the back plate pressed against the upright. Then an angle grinder with a thick metal cutting disc can be used to remove the offending portion of metal. Removing small amounts at a time and repeatedly trial fitting ensured that only the minimum of metal was cut away. Thereby ensuring minimal reduction in the structural integrity of the upright.

Here is a view of one of the uprights after surgery. The bear metal surfaces will be painted with smooth black hammerite prior to fitting of the brake back plate.