Since my La Carrera postings have turned out to be few
& far between, I'll pop off a quick update on how the
preparation of Redcar for the ever-postponed La Carrera
Classic Road Race has been coming:
Since last year's preparation covered the front
suspension & brakes, I highlighted the main projects
this year to be rear suspension & general misc. clean
up & cosmetics.
What I wanted besides a general good feeling that all
components were in good shape, was for the car to
lose it's tendency to lift the inside rear wheel when
cornering hard. Talking to Phil E. gave me some ideas
of what might be amiss, and so I formed a plan to put
the rear springs back in their normal configuration,
remove the sway bar for the time being, fit a
Panhard rod, and then see how it behaved. But first I
reckoned that everything must be in good shape. Boy,
what a can of worms I had just opened. For brevity's
sake, I'll list what I've found and repaired since
attacking this. (BTW I still haven't gotten the springs
reset or the panhard on).
-Chipped ring gear on diff
*rebuild diff, filing down chip. fingers crossed.
-spun wheel bearing in rear hub, ruining hub
*replace wheel bearings, hubs.
-brake backing plate loose, allowing oil to seep out
*replace all bolts with self-locking
-wheel cylinder retaining ring no longer retaining,
allowing wheel cylinder to come in contact with
(rotating) hub. NOT good.
*Still working on this, but it looks like I'll end
up tapping a small hole on the back of the slave cyl
that usually holds a roll pin that retains the cyl. in
the correct orientation. Into this hole will go a small
socket-head cap screw that will hold the cylinder
firmly against the backing plate. As an extra safety
measure, I've ground a flat across the side of the
slave cylinder and cut down the heads of the wheel
studs just a tad.
-driveshaft u-joints loose.
*replace u-joints, nearly destroying one driveshaft
in the process.
In addition to these mechanical fixes, I've also pulled
& sandblasted the roll cage, and it goes to the
powderpainter's today, dropped the dash to finish up
the year-old new wiring harness, pulled up all the
carpet so I can Hammerite the floors & put down new
carpet, installed a cross-flow radiator system,
converted the bonnet back to the normal manner of
opening, pulled the seats apart for R & R, pulled the
starter to put new bushings in it, pulled the ......
I have this feeling that one day I'll go out to
the garage & I'll find that I've completely
disassembled the car. Whaddya call it, shipwright's
disease ? Actually I have a goal to drive the car home
for Easter, just to get the bugs out. I'll keep y'all
posted .....
cheers-
dstone@sc9.intel.com
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