Back to Work

I got home from my travels on Friday night and saw that five boxes had arrived while I was away.  However, before diving in, I wanted to spend some time with the family and get caught-up on two weeks worth of stuff to do.  Fortunately, there were a bunch of things for me to fix around the house, a few bills to pay, tax statements to file, etc., etc.

By yesterday, I couldn't wait any longer.  I opened the boxes and as I expected, I received the brake components I had ordered and a few other things.  I moved some parts inside so I could start working on them without having my fingers stick to the frigid metal (it's only about 15 degrees here).

Oh, I forgot to mention that I had also started working on refurbishing the differential I bought from Victor and Diane (I wonder how he's doing?).  This is what it looked like when it arrived.

I opened it up and inspected the gears, bearings and wear patterns.  Surprisingly, it looked pretty good.

The main issue that I found was that the primary gear shown in the picture above is only supposed to have 0.01" of movement and I found that it had about 0.04".  I decided to leave it alone.  I also didn't bother replacing the seals even though they might leak a little.  Hopefully, it will all be okay.  I cleaned everything, reinstalled the rear cover and painted it to match the other parts.  Now it's ready to go in the car.

Also, before I left, I went back to George to have him install new bearings in my rear spindles.  Fortunately, they went together a lot easier than when we had to take them apart.  Here is one of the spindles on the hydraulic press.

And here is the finished part with new bearings and a new hub that will fit the wheels I ordered.

So, with brake components in hand and all the other rear suspension parts ready to be installed, I could start the test fitting.

The round top hat is the rotor and this is what the brake grabs to stop the car.  Here is a picture of the rear brake unit.

And this is what it looks like when it's all together (it is pointing up in the picture since it's sitting on the work table.  On the car, it will point sideways and the wheel will attach using the 5 bolts).

Looks good -- from this angle.  But from underneath, there's an issue.  I had decided to go with larger brakes to help improve stopping (I figured that would be important).  Now the brake unit doesn't line up with the mounting holes (the gold hole doesn't reach over the blue hole).

I actually knew this would happen (yeah, right) and plan on making a bracket out of 1/4 inch steel that will hopefully be strong enough to hold everything together when I slam the brakes.  I already started working on the dimensions I need for the bracket, but it's a tight fit.  I think it will work just fine (fingers crossed).