Rear Axle - Jag Rear Overhaul - Part 8

The next job (after the paint and clear lacquer on the diff head hardened) was to colour sand, cut and polish. It does seem strange to have a nice shiny paint job then attack it with sandpaper, but that is exactly what you do.

When you put the clear on it has little fine bumps, stipple or orange peel that makes the finish a little less shiny. To get that real mirror finish shine you have to sand the surface with very fine sandpaper to remove that stipple. You have to be careful though to only take that surface off and to not go through the clear coat to the coloured paint as that would mean starting all over again.

Once the sanding is done its then a case of using a cutting polish to take out the fine little sandpaper scratches. After that its on with a finishing polish. David you might remember giving me a tin of Carnuba wax some years ago....well thats what I used here and it came up really nicely. Sorry the pictures aren't great as they are all taken at night, but here's what it looks like after cutting and polishing. I mounted the brake caliper mounting plates and the diff quick change cover just to see what it was going to look like with a bit of bling.

Its hard to see in this light, but here is a close up so you get an idea of the gloss that is on the paint finish. I have to say I am pretty happy with my first ever attempt at painting. 

Now in my last blog you might recall I ran into a bit of an issue with retaining the bolts that hold the brake caliper mount in place and also hold the side covers on the diff head. If one of these came loose it could actually lock the axle up. If that happened at speed it would be disastrous!!!!

You might also recall I was looking at using a safety wire threaded through the bolts to stop them coming loose. This is a safe solution but not so sexy to look at. I came up with another idea though that looks a whole lot nicer and will be just as secure if not better.

I had some lock rings made. In effect they are a bolt on cover that bolts over the top of the caliper mount bolts. Here is one of the covers I had cut from ali and have had polished. Now you can't argue with the fact that this looks much better than a safety wire!

In the next pic you can see the caliper mounting bracket with the 5 main holes that hold it in place. In between those holes there are smaller holes that the lock ring will screw into (thanks Roger for all you help with these)

And here you can see what it will look like with the lock plate mounted. Note I made the lock ring slightly smaller so I can still see the very edge of the main bolts. That way I will be able to see if anything starts to move or loosen.

So to mount it all up I put the main bolts in and used loctite (a type of glue that stops bolts coming undone without significant force) and then I bolted the locking ring on over the top also using loctite.

The theory is that if something did come loose it would either be a small screw and it would just shear off and not lock the axle. You'd hear it and feel it though so you inspect and rectify at that point.

If I was unfortunate enough to have one of the main bolts come undone, it would need to distort the locking ring and if that started making contact it would make a hell of a noise and would slowly grind. It would not cause a catastrophic lock up though.

Here it is all mounted up. Looking good.

Now while we are on the topic of the safety wire there are a few bolts that do need to be wired. Its in the certification rules that they need to be and it makes sense as they are quite integral to the structure of the rear end. Also they are hidden away so you'll never really see the wire anyway.

The first place is the side mounting brackets that the bottom arms pivot on. Just two bolts on each side. I bolted them up....again using loctite....and torqued them up to the factory specs.

Then it was a case of wiring them. My mate Brian had some safety wire pliers which he has kindly loaned to me....thanks Brian. Here's what they look like, and the wire is a stainless wire specifically for the purpose.

I searched on Youtube to find out how to use them and here is the clip I found most useful. If you have trouble viewing the video here, paste this link into your web browser to view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwkL0qfyFL0

So I had a crack at it and here is my first attempt. Looks okay and it will certainly do the trick. To loosen a bolt you need to turn it anti clockwise. As you can see here if you turn the left bolt anti clockwise (try to loosen it) it will pull the wire and try and pull the right hand bolt in a clockwise direction i.e. to loosen the left bolt the wire will try and tighten the right bolt....outcome is the left bolt can't come undone. Now try and turn the right bolt anti clockwise....same deal it will try and tighten the left hand bolt. Thats it a locking or safety wire doing its thing.

With that all done while I still had access to it, I was now able to start mounting up some of the other hardware. 

You might remember from my last post, with the set up I have, that I need to bolt the brake calipers on in their two separate halves. This is because the bolts that need to be tightened to hold them on will be behind the brake disc. So I can't put the caliper on and then the disk. Nor can I put the disc on then the caliper.

Instead I need to bolt the inner half of the caliper on to the mount bracket....then slip the disc on....then bolt the outer half of the caliper on.

Here you can see I have the inner handbrake caliper half slipped onto the mount bracket.

And here is the main footbrake caliper inner half mounted. Note also the drive hub is now bolted on too.

Here is a view of the whole set up just before I slip the brake disc on.

Once the disc was slipped I was able to bolt the outer caliper halves on which effectively clamp the disc in place.

And here we are all buttoned up! The brake pads have been inserted through the slot in the rear of the caliper and that is another step in the assembly process completed!

Pretty happy. Its starting to look good and you'll have to take my word for it, it looks 10 time better in the daylight!