Rear Axle - Jag Rear Overhaul - Part 5

Man what a cool day I just had....actually its been a cool few days as I have been picking up a few parts for the Jag Rear as they are finished at chrome, HPC and the painters. So here's a bit of an update.

Firstly remember these Jag rear tie bars that Bill Dobbin helped me with by drawing them up in CAD so they could be laser cut?

Well they've been chromed now. Nice!

Remember this hub drive flange?

Its been Ceramic coated by HPC now. 

Along with a few washers and spacers so they won't rust.

They also coated the diff head drive flanges pictured in the bottom right of this next pic.

They now look like this.

I had the team at HPC coat the centres of the brake discs too.

So now I have a shed full of blingy bits all coming together.

While all this parts finishing has been going on I have also taken the diff head away to be bead blasted and cleaned in a hot tank before going to the painters for a coating of feather fill. Its a really thick and hard filler that fills up imperfections before painting. This is what the diff head looked like before it went away.

And here it is with the feather fill on it.

You can see in this next pic the orange peel finish after the feather fill has been applied over the rough cast surface.

With a bit of sanding though it comes up nice and smooth like this.

I have spent an hour on it this afternoon and I reckon at least another 5 to go. Then I will add a bit of filler to the real low spots, sand it some more, then return it to the painters for another coat of feather fill to cover any spots where I have gone through the current coat to bare metal.

Once thats done, I will sand it again before they then protect it with a coat of white paint. That will seal it so it is no longer porous and at that point it can go back to Bill for reassembly of all the diff head internals. The white paint will mean that any oil or grease that gets on it won't be a problem and it won't matter if Bill accidentally knocks or scratches it as it can easily be touched up.

This is important as when setting up a diff there are a lot of fine tolerances that need to be set so that the diff runs smoothly and doesn't flog out the bearings or the gears but also so that it isn't noisey. To achieve this shims (very thin washers) are put in and measurements taken to check tolerances or what is sometimes referred to as pre-load. To get it right it can take several goes which means unassembling and reassembling several times. Obviously you don't want the finished painted surface getting damaged so thats why they use a cheap coat of white paint.

Once its all assembled it will go back to the painters one last time for its final coat of paint. I'm not gonna tell you what colour just yet, you'll have to wait and see!

Now last and but no means least I got quite a buzz today when I went and saw my mate Pete Clothier. He had some springs he was selling that I needed for my build, so he kindly did a deal on them for me. Thanks Pete, very much appreciated. Here's what they look like mounted on the shock absorbers. Beautiful!

But that wasn't the buzz.....the thrill of the day was going for a ride up the road in his Coupe that he is nearing completion on. This body came out of the same mould as mine. Pete has done a fantastic job getting this car to this point and he does it all himself. Its an absolute credit to him. Going for a ride in it brought back a few memories of my last coupe and has spurred me on even more. I really miss not having a car that's on the road!

Anyway feast your eye's on this. It is a real cool build.