Rear Axle - Jag Rear Overhaul - Part 10

I took a step backwards this afternoon to take two steps forwards.....

If you go back to the Jag Rear Overhaul Part 3 .......(I still can't quite believe that was way back in 2012).....you will see that the axles and the universal joints were all assembled and ready to be installed. UNFORTUNATELY though I experienced a Muppet moment shortly after this and had to have them all pulled apart again. So why did I go backwards like this?

Well you see I sent the freshly chromed axles and the hubs away to a Jag specialist to be assembled as the bearings in the hubs need to be pressed in to a specific "pre-load". That means they get put in with a tiny bit of play to allow the bearings to run freely without binding up but not so loose that the wheel wobbles about. It is quite a specific measurement that requires special tools. So a Jag specialist seemed like a good idea.

As I mentioned though I ran into a Muppet who was working there and was assigned my job. In his wisdom he put the freshly chromed axles in the vice so he could tighten the big nut on the end of the axle when it was being mounted in the hub! Yep thats right chrome in a vice! Guess what it cracked the chrome....next step would be for rust to form and the chrome to start falling off. What an idiot! Not only once but twice! He did it to both axles!

Thankfully the company came to the party and paid for the axles to be re-chromed, but it meant disassembling them again so that could be done. Grrrr.

Now while they were apart I thought more about the universals. Heres one below. You can see this one has been marked so that each cap goes back onto the right shaft when they are reassembled into the axles.

I decided that while they look okay, that seeing as I had them all apart again, I would paint the universals. They are covered in a plastic clear finish, but over time they could rust especially given they are in quite a hostile environment under the car and near brakes and brake dust in the case of the inner ones. It is a lot easier to paint these now while they are out than it would be when installed. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

So the first thing was to clean all the parts and mask them up. In the case of the centre cross they had a few casting marks that I smoothed off with a Dremel (a small hand held grinder). Here is one all masked up and ready for paint. There are 4 of these and it literally took hours to get to this stage.

Once all were masked I made a board with holes in it to hold the crosses and laid the cups out in a row so I could spray paint them from all angles.

Here is the finished product all painted with the matched cups back on the correct shafts on the centre cross. It doesn't look a whole lot different to what I started with but they are protected from the elements now and won't go all rusty.

Now while I had the paint out I thought I'd also attack the hubs. You can see here what a nice job Jack the metal polisher did for me. These hubs are about 50 years old now and they were peppered with stone chips and grime from all that time being dragged around under a car.

Jack is an absolute wizz. A real nice guy and he charges very reasonable prices. His operation is very old school. He has a tin shed in an industrial area that you'd struggle to find if you didn't know where it was, but his reputation is so good that people come from near and far to get a good job done. Here he is hard at work on someones alternator.

Here's the shed. Very unassuming, but the stuff that comes out of here is nothing short of superb!

Anyway back to those hubs. When Jack polished them I told him not to worry too much about the inside of them as it would have been very difficult to get at to polish but also really difficult for me to get at once assembled in the car to keep the aluminium shiny. Instead I decided to paint this part of them. You can see here how they are still natural aluminium and a bit black from the polishing dust.

So I cleaned these, masked them up, primed them, painted them and gave them a shot of clear coat. Not as good as polished alloy, but they look okay and will be fairly easy to look after once installed. 

Thats another weekend shot and quite close to being able to finish reassembling the back end. Keep watching!