Build Day 12- Rear Axle and Roll Bar

Day 12- Rear Axle and Roll Bar

Now the diff and the propshaft is in we can progress onto the rear axle. Yesterday evening we took a couple of hours to plan this morning and properly get to grips with the instructions, and get a little start on the De Dion tube by dry bolting the aluminium ears. Tonight we moved onto preparing the tube, and the car for fully fitting the rear suspension and axle.

De Dion Tube

We dry fitted the ears, calliper brackets, and callipers to the De Dion tube in order to rivet the brake lines to the tube. Naturally we have found, as all others have, that the RH brake line requires bending to the correct angle to be able to be screwed into the back of the calliper. 

It gets quite Confusing while trying to fit the right bolts in especially with the several varying lengths of M10 bolt in the pack, but we believe we have used the correct bolts.

LH Brake pipe with sleeve against watts-link/ radius arm bracket.

After bending the pipe we put the 5 P clips on the pipes then proceeded to rivet the pipes, only to find that the holes aren't quite large enough, so we quickly cleaned out the holes with a drill then properly riveted the hose on. 

Hose sufficiently bent around 22mm socket set in the vice.

Having read through the manual for the correct procedure for putting the rear suspension in we realised that we needed to fit the roll bar as we had the new FIA variant meaning that it had to be fitted before the rear dampers, and that we perceived that it would be a shorter job than it would soon turn out to be...

FIA Roll Bar

This has probably been easily the second most, after generally having so many missing parts, that we have come across so far. Firstly having placed the bar onto the car and into the bucket bushes it was evident that the bar wasn't going to go in without a struggle. First of all the capheads passing up through the body and into the bottom of the bar went in ok, however it was evident that the top bolt passing in through the top wasn't going to align with the hole without a shove. 

Top bolt hole. 

To get these bolts in the struts must be pulled out and then pushed into the brackets in the rear of the boot, then while one person pulls the main hoop over to clear the hole the bolt can be tightened. However then the rear struts fall out. Anyway in the end we managed to break the head off of top bolt meaning the thing had to come off again.

First we tried using mole grips to unscrew it without effect, meaning we were faced with having to drill the thing out... As one would tap a hole we increasingly drilled the centre out and eventually managed to remove enough material to be able to rip out the remaining threads and clean it out using a tap.  

Bolt mid removal.

However eventually we were able to repeat the fitting procedure, taking even more care not to strip any threads, and got the thing in and torqued up.

Finally starting to look a little bit like the finished product.

Next time we will move onto the rear axle now that the roll over bar is in.