Rear Axle - Jag Rear Overhaul - Part 4

Okay more progress here, though not as fast as some might expect. In fact I have had a couple of people say they were a bit disappointed when they saw my last post about the Jag Rear go up as they thought that would be it reconditioned, reassembled and installed in the chassis.

Sorry guys its not quite that easy.

Actually working on this Jag rear its the first time I have really understood the phrase that something has been "over engineered".  I have heard that said about a Jag rear before and I certainly know why now. They are way more complicated than they need to be and there are way more components than you'd ever see on a Japanese car. The good bit though is it is all serviceable!

You see this next picture is what all the components look like when taken apart.....and this is just for one side. This is repeated for the other side of the car. Double click on the image to have a closer look.

I have highlighted a few of the parts.....firstly the yellow part is the axle and universals I showed you in the recent blog. This gives you an idea of how much more there is too this back axle.

The orange parts I don't have. Instead of this spindle set up with one big wing nut (called a knock off) I will have a more common set up for attaching the wheels like any other road car where there will be 5 wheel nuts. The next picture shows the drive flange with its 5 studs for the wheel nuts.

Now back to the diagram.....The pink highlighted parts are as follows.....

1. These are just dust covers and detract from the overall look and won't be used.

2. This is what is known as the cage and it basically is a frame that the whole unit bolts into. I won't be using this either as they are bulky and ugly. Instead the diff will bolt straight up to the chassis (first picture below) and the two halves of the rear axle assembly will be tied together by the two tie bars in the second picture below.

3. The third part highlighted pink is a bottom plate that ties everything together underneath. This will be replaced by a new fancier one.

4. Last but not least the 4th part highlighted pink is a control arm. These ugly pressed steel ones will be replaced by a cleaner looking chromed control arm.

As for the rest of the bits though.....and there are about 100 of them......I needed to clean them and inspect them and decide what needs to be replaced. There are a few bits too that I will get chromed or HPC'd to protect them. If I don't they may rust. Some of the bits are barely visible but if I don't protect them they will still deteriorate and drop rust stained water if they get wet etc.

This is the bucket of bits I need to attend to.

And here we are all set to go with a basin, parts cleaning brush, a good supply of rags and Kerosene for breaking down the grease and grime.

So after about two hours of soaking, scrubbing and wiping, here are all the bits laid out.

Now I am all set to make runs to the Jag dealer to replace a few parts, HPC to get a few parts ceramic coated, the electroplater to get some parts chromed and I'll also need to source a few new bearings. That should keep me busy all week.

Now on top of that.....this next drawing shows an exploded view of the Jag diff head. My Diff head has gone across to Bill Dobbin who is going to rebuild the diff head for me. First he'll pull it apart like this diagram so I can get replacement bearings and of course have the diff head all painted up before it goes back together.

You'll se I have highlighted a part orange here too. This is the back cover of the diff head and I will be upgrading that to a more fancy looking alloy one. Thats shown in the next picture but is missing the back cover as it is getting some work done on it. I'll show you more of that later.

So there you go....still plenty to do. Sorry but it won't be getting assembled for a wee while yet, but keep watching!