Final axle assembly.

With the shimming sorted the axle can now be finally assembled. The axle was stripped down again and the diff put back up on the bench, I started by lock wiring the pivot bracket bolts. I'm fairly happy with my first attempt at lock wiring.

Next on the disc shims and disc's.


Followed by the caliper's.


Cross Pipes and hand brake calipers next.


Hand brake pads set as per Haynes manual instructions.

Finally the main pads go in and thats that, diff assembly completed.

I'm rather pleased with that!

The diff was then put back on its 8" blocks on the floor as it would get too heavy for teh work bench from here on in.

The axle was built back up again starting with the lower arms and this time putting the bearing together with grease. Ive documented the last bearing going together as it was a lot easier taking pictures with the arms held in place on the diff!

Step 1
Bearing tube is in

Step 2
Inner thrust washer goes on with grease.

Step3
Seal fits over the inner thrust washer.

Step4
Seal retainer goes over the seal

Step 5
Outer thrust washer fits over the lot.


Thats it, do that 8 times and after a bit of juggling the pivot shafts can be tapped through not forgetting the spacer tube!

Then on go the GD brackets, hub (with shim's) and drive shaft assemblies.

Just to remember what it looked like when purchased on the 3rd November 2003!


And now the finished article.

I'm a bit chuffed with that!

Bit of an update

Well its been a while since Ive updated this blog, I have been doing things but have neglected to keep this updated. So here goes at an update.

As I left it the rear axle was temporarily assembled ready to check the toe and thrust so I decided that measuring the toe in on the floor wasnt really worth it, Id have to measure it again on chassis anyway.

First off before fitting the axle I marked the center of the chassis at the front and the back and then stretched a string line between the two points.

I then positioned the chassis over the axle and attempted to bolt it up, here I found out why GD recommend fitting the rear axle first before the front, it makes the chassis a whole lot lighter!!

With a lot of battling the axle was bolted in and I could start to measure up.

Here again I saw no reason the reinvent the wheel, so I followed Simons measurement method as described on his blog. Theres no need for me to go into it here, if you want to know how its done see the link to Simons build in the Links section and look under running gear.

Anyway the initial results were not too bad I had toe out. So I jacked up the chassis and fitted shims in situ, now here I saw the benefit of not fully assembling the axle, I could undo the pivot bracket bolts and add shims without removing the inner pivot shafts.

Working on the O/S first I adjust the front shimming from 12 thou to 7 thou and remeasured, the O/S now toed in by 0.22mm So onto the N/S and again adjusted the front to 7 thou, remeasured and obtained 0.30mm toe in.

Simply all I had to do now was drop the axle out and fully assemble it for final fittment. Simple he says!!