Friday 13 November 2015

New Suspension, Brake Lines and Steering Column Complete

A bit more progress on a few items over the past few weeks. The disassembled monocoque is now being surrounded with plastic tubs full of refurbished or new components and in a few weeks I will commence reassembly of the front end of the car. 


A full new set of suspension components has been fabricated, plated and ready to install.
Many thanks to Elwyn Bickley for the new front and rear Wishbones, thanks to Crawford Hall for fabrication of the new Radius Rods and Tie Rods and thanks to Swift Electroplaters in Silverwater for the lovely electrolysis nickle plating.


 

Of course each of these new suspension components require either ball joints or rod ends (purchased from Bryan Miller - Eastern Raceparts) and every rod end and ball joint requires spacers to be manufactured. The top photo is of the collection of new spacers made by Crawford for the rod ends to be fitted to the radius rods and tie rods. 
As per the photo directly above they are made exactly like the originals, many with lovely curved profiles that allow the ball joint greater movement under suspension travel. These are all fabricated from high tensile stainless steel. 


All work on refurbishing the brakes is now complete with the new brake and clutch lines now finished (new on the left, old on the right in case it was not obvious) and the Brake and Clutch calipers and master / slave cylinders refurbished as per prior posts.







The new steering column is now also complete. The original steering column (on the right in the photo directly above) has a lovely cast aluminum fitting at the steering wheel end with 6 screws to attach the steering wheel. The column was too long for me (suitable for a shorter driver). I wished to retain the original column (you know, just in case Niki Lauda calls to ask for a drive of his old car) and also wished to avoid drilling additional holes in the original steering wheel but wanted a shorter column and to also fit a quick release steering wheel hub. Having a new column with an identical end fitting plus an adapter plate manufactured by Crawford solved the problem.