73T - Brake & Suspension Refurb - Part 2 - Refurbishment

[Highfield]

For those of you following my brake and suspension refurb here on Pelican,
73T - Brake & Suspension Refurb - Part 1 - Dismantling, I am now moving to the refurbishment phase.

I already have a number of new and nearly new parts on the shelf, but the parts removed from the car that are not being sold, will be either powder coated or yellow zinc plated.

The first batch is off to Redditch Shotblasting (www.redditchshotblasting.co.uk) who specialise in this area, and have been seen at the NEC Classic Car Show, so lets see how they come up price and quality wise.

I have filled the Alfa boot for now, and have a box of ziploc bags labelled as Front / Rear right or left and 'general'. I don't for one moment believe they will come back grouped like that, so my problems may begin in identifying what goes where.





Ian

[cameron.arnott]

Watching with interest

[Highfield]

I wanted to achieve one final piece of work before going back to work next week, so decided to clean up the steering rack and fit the turbo tie rods.

The rack wasn't too bad, and had been functioning perfectly, so I set to with the trusty red bucket and degreaser. The red bucket is fast becoming a 'wheres Wally' equivalent of my posts :-)



Then a little help from some 1000 grade wet and dry, solvol autosol and an old scotchbrite revealed a clean 'alloy' rack. Bought back memories of the 1970/1980's and polishing bike crankcases using the solvol autosol - years since I used that stuff.











With the rack cleaned, it was the tie rods next.

[Highfield]

Wayne's book really explains this well, so here are the shots of my progress.

I wound the old tie rod end back on to form the lever to remove the whole tie rod, this after releasing the spring fixings - remember to leave the inner spring fixing on the rack for later use.







The new turbo tie rod screws in and unless you have a large open ended spanner, is tightened with mole grips.



Then remove the tie rod end and feed the rubber boot over the end and affix using the spring retainer (that you left there).



The other end of the boot seems to fit over the rubber on the tie rod, but there is no fixing supplied.

Question - should this have a clip or perhaps a cable tie around it ?





The other side is the same, and then we have one completed cleaned rack with tie rods.



I had not measured the end to end distance on my rack when it was removed - mistake - learn from it next time :-)

The final job was to clean the plastic cover and rubber bush / bearing that go in the smugglers box.



Ian

[Flieger]

That is a fun way to start the day- reading technical German upside down

[Highfield]

Here are a few teasers (or as good as I can do for now)of the parts that are back from the zinc platers - Redditch Shotblasting took care of these along with the satin black powder coating. OK, I know that Mike and Ferryman have excellent 'teasers', but I liked these and look forward to putting it all back together with clean parts.

I have boxes of things and the shelves are bending under the weight :-)







Vapur blasted hubs.




The only problem is they have not been that well kept in separate bags, so heaven knows if I will ever find the right bolts for the right parts.

More pictures to follow tomorrow.

Ian

[SteveinTO]

Did you make the inside of the rack look as good as the outside? Now's the time. The grease in mine had turned to "peanut butter gorp" after 26 years.

[SteveinTO]

Sorry, pulled trigger before attaching pics.

[SteveinTO]

Well that's the one I was trying for. Think I'll go to bed now. Sheesh!

[al lkosmal]

Beautiful job. I'm following close behind. I have the rack and calipers cleaned and rebuilt and the A-arms powder coated and ready for re-assembly.

[jwernquist]

Wow guys nice stuff, I have alot to do to keep up with you both!!

JW

[jwernquist]

sorry double.

[Highfield]

I did not open the rack up to re-grease. I will take a look at that before I refit.

Thanks,

Ian

[Highfield]

I needed to catalogue what I had back from Redditch Shotblasting, so here are the zinc pieces first.

Spring plates and brackets :-





Front ARB :-





Front brake covers :-



Ian

[Highfield]

Lots of brackets and bolts etc. :-

















Washers and an unidentified large ring - any clues :-






Ian

[Highfield]

And the remaining few powder coated items.

Front belly pan :-





Rear ARB :-







Front ARB :-









The rear alloy arms are having the bearings removed, and will be next to be cleaned and refurbised.

Ian

[Highfield]

Pictures are not too good - the finish is really excellent and satin black.













Ian

[Baz]

Ian,
Incredible! Thanks for sharing......very inspirational, mate!
Cheers,

[Eric_Shea]

Looking good Ian :trophy:

[rfn026]

I don't even want to think about the plating bill.

Richard