Time To Stop

So now the chassis rolls it’s time to get it to stop rolling. I splurged a little cash on a front brake kit with some upgraded rotors as they are drilled and grooved to help with a little heat dissipation. First up really was to make the callipers cosmetically nicer, so the seals were popped out and masked up the areas that need to stay paint free. I gave them both a good degrease first as I want the paint to stay bonded to them as despite them being a nice galvanised finish it needs a good etch on top to bite into the surface and then for the paint. I took my time doing all this and did one calliper one day then the second calliper the day after then a top coat finish that will match the body of the car when finished, a luscious Ferrari Rosso Corsa red. I haven’t owned a red car for many years and whilst it’s a very bright colour it will look tremendous on this project when finished, and matching callipers is all in the grand plan with the attention to detail.

With the callipers painted and left to cure for a day it was time to start getting everything assembled and making sure it was going to fit ok. I started off fabricating some brackets that fix on to the top wishbone bolt that are the fixing point for the brake flexi to the ridged copper brake pipe. I spent flipping hours fabricating these little bits of bent steel cutting, filing, drilling and bending them both perfectly. Then I spent time etching them and painting them to match the chassis….. then to cut a long story short as soon as I had finished them and was really happy with how they had turned out, I went and found the original brackets in my box of bits that I have saved from the strip down…. Bugger. 

I then reverted back to the original’s after a good wire brush clean, etch prime and paint again. The originals are much more beefy the ones I made as I only had some 18gauge steel as opposed to these that are double bonded 3mm steel so really strong in comparison to mine….. belt and braces.

Not all is in vain with my now redundant brackets as they will come in useful for the bell housing bolts as they can act as a clip point where the brake line passes over the transmission to the servo so I’ve really just solved a problem way further down the line, way before I get to it. 

I moved onto the front hubs next and spent some time wire brushing and removing all the texture paint from the back of the hub to give a good machined face surface for the brake rotor to sit against. The rotors fitted perfect to the hubs and were torqued up to, in my opinion, a relatively low 88Nm and now with the rotors on the hubs the whole assembly went back onto the stub axles. I’m not setting all the bearings under load yet as they will be on and off many times again over the next few months during the build so just on finger tight for now.

 In went the brake pads that came in the kit, mixed reviews on these over the internet and the social media groups, still they will be fine for my needs and it’s not like brake pads are expensive or hard to replace later on if needed. The offside is significantly tighter than the near side on the pads, and keeping in mind no pressure or fluid is present yet it seems like the offside rotor is tad further offset on the calliper centre line. This could be down to the bearings not seating perfectly until they get some use or possibly just tight from being new. I’ll look into possibly adding a shim between the rotor and hub to bring it back or possibly one to watch after the first few miles on the clock after everything has settled in. These are fixed callipers and not sliding so the rotors should be fairly central in the calliper to avoid uneven pad wear over time.. a little niggle but “should” be easy enough to sort out.

I’m really pleased with how these are looking and will hopefully be pleased with how they perform also. They must be the smallest brakes I’ve ever seen in my life, but should be more than sufficient for my little Spyder. After all they will be doing less of a job then if a Spitfire body was going back on. 

Next up I think I need to tackle the steering rack. I have watched some really good videos on you tube on a full refurb which had easily given me the confidence to tackle it myself.  I will enjoy the strip down of that and cleaning it all up. I’ll need to order the standard perishable parts but other than that it should be straightforward to do and enjoyable… it’s nice to finally start building and putting stuff together again, very satisfying. 

Rolling Once Again!

 So I’ve been having some issues with the fitment of the front hubs, specifically the bearings and stub axles. My last post showed how the outer bearing was a terrible fit on the stub axle. So bad I ended up returning the full bearing kits and replacing the new stub axles completely also. My replacement parts are much better fitting than the last ones, but I have still had to have a fair old fettle to get them to fit nicely and allow the bearing to fit correctly as they should. These replacements parts are sure as hell not built to the same tolerances as the original unit which makes things very frustrating to build up again. 

With switching the stubs and bearings I have gone from an impossible fitting outer bearing and good inner to a bad fit inner bearing, but the outer was good. In order to remedy the fit I have basically emery cloth the hell out of the stub after firstly using some various grades of wet and dry to reduce the overall diameter, this has been laborious to do but now the inner and outer bearings fit perfectly…. Phew! and more importantly they will now operate as intended with the specific end float and bearing adjustable as wear slowly happens. The bearing races were driven in using the bearing drift set I got many years ago, this ensures the race sits even and square in the hub, with zero damage to the face which can happen if using a punch to sit them in. Any damage to the race face will reduce the lifespan of the bearing significantly so these are a great tool to have in the garage. 

I also picked up some water deflectors for the front hubs, these are not available anymore as a replacement part so secondhand is the only option, I only had one when I got the car, but picked up a pair for £10 off eBay. I’ve wire brushed them back and then primed and painted them also. Some feedback on the forums is that they are not really required, however they were designed to be on the car so they are staying on mine…. They serve a purpose after all and my front wheels will be significantly more exposed to the weather then on the original Spitfire, so on they went with copious amounts of waterproof grease in the hubs and bearings. 

 With both sides done I was able to offer the hubs up and make sure I had no problems, I torqued up the stub axle nut (88Nm) and solved the previous issue where the steering arm wasn’t sitting correctly…. I had a washer between the hub upright and steering arm which was spacing it out unnecessarily. This was down to not remembering how I disassembled it all and trusting the schematics that you find online listing all the component parts with relevant part numbers….Shock eh, the internet having the wrong information everywhere. 

On went the old original wheels and were rolling again, great!!  Granted the wheels toe out whenever you push it, as no steering rack is on yet (need to start refurbishing this now) and also no front or back brakes either. I have all the brake components in my online basket, and the intention was to have all these fitted now at the same time for this update. However with all the tolerance issues I’ve been having I’m trying to broaden my supplier list and find someone who provides machined parts that actually fit correctly. So I’m holding back for the moment until I’m confident that the parts I order will be ok. 

So that’s it really for this update, short and sweet. I have lifted the body onto the now rolling chassis and must admit it’s looking bloody fantastic and very exciting. I will be ordering the final stage parts for the chassis in the next few weeks and so another little update should happen soon. I’m considering upgrading the front brakes discs and callipers to some vented units that are “supposedly” an improvement, however on a car that has no servo assist and will be significantly lighter than the original I really need to weigh up the pros and cons of making changes to the standard setup.