Working on front brakes and suspension

The car is actually in the workshop where they will do all the jobs I can't because I don’t have the necessary tools, lifts, or experience to be confident: brakes & suspensions specially. Other small jobs will be fitting a new ss exhaust line, rocker valve clearance, oil change, etc

So far the mechanic has removed all the front suspension to fit new rubber bushes, disk brakes, pads and ss brake hoses. To fit the new disk brakes we had some trouble. Inside the wire wheels hubs there are some grease caps that where seized and  very difficult to remove. But worst was to remove the hub it´s self. After removing the hub screw, trouble was to pull the hub out. After using a big bearing removing tool we could take the hub out, but one of the very expensive bearings came apart. After reading a lot of information out there I see people will have different opinions if a bearing taht comes apart should be reused or not. Some will say that when it comes apart, the balls and races will get damage and are useless. Others will say they have put them together and used them for many years. In my case, I am not sure yet what to do…. Anyway, there is a great article on spridget hubs and bearings by Norm Kerr and also a second article by Tom Smith's which are of great interest!

I also found an unexpected problem as one of the king pins needs to be changed, because the lower bronze bush it has, where the fulcrum pin goes, had a lot of wear and it´s not possible to repair them. The other king pin has nearly no wear, so I will be using it.

Fulcrum pins are in good conditions so I will also re use them. One of the lower wishbone pans had a bush loose that needed to be soldered, so I fitted the fulcrum pin to ensure perfect alignment, and soldered it. The rest of the wishbone was in perfect condition, so although they sell great new ones with upgraded greasing system at “Barry King wishbones”, I will keep the original ones. 

Many people, or more specifically, many mechanics, when performing suspension overall, will just take apart all parts, change necessary parts and reassemble. For me, not taking the opportunity to clean and plaint every single part, would not be a good job, so once the mechanic had dismantled all parts, I took them home.

Parts came off with a lot of mud, rubbish and rust that needed many hours of cleaning and sanding to get a great finish because I did not have the sand blast machine with me.

I noticed that one of the stub axels, had a borken grease nipple, so I had to figure how to remove the small threaded part that was inside…

With my dremel and the grinding tool I grinded the face of a small flat screwdriver. I placed it on top of the broken nipple, and aftet 2 hammer strikes, the bit was securely fitted inside the nipple. Finally it was just a matter of unscrewing it with care. Now I need to order a new nipple. 

I painted all parts with por15 paint after cleaning with its porpoise metal cleaner, and treat with its metal ready liquid which should convert any remaining rust and etch the metal surface for the best key. The lower wishbones had some intricate parts that made it very difficult to sand by had, so I just gave them to my friend Sergio of Kyra Klaus sand blasting service which completely cleaned them. 

Once all the suspension parts are back together, it will be so nice with cleand and painted parts!

Now it´s time to fit all the parts...