Rear Suspension

With the focus on the rear suspension, I was hoping to get all four wheels on the car. Seeing as the roll bar was already installed, first the damper units went in each side. Great care was taken with the lower bolts of each of these units to ensure that the holes were not cross threaded. Next the radius arms were installed. The bolt into the side of the car were fine, but the flanges on the de-dion required bending to create an opening big enough to receive the bush at the end of the radius arm.

LH damper installed

Radius arm being installed

Bearing slop

Bearing in nominal position

The A-frame was a bit more of a pain; the attachment to the de-dion required some slender sockets to get on the nut and bolt, but that was the easy part! Getting the alignment at the front moutings correct was more challenging. As the AG suggested I did end up with 3 spacers one side and four on the other to achieve perfect spacing, but it was an effort to get the 3 spacers in and the bolt through - two man job for sure.

Putting the ears back on the de-dion (with Loctite) was fine as was installing the hubs. Installing the disc was also no problem, but when adding the caliper great care was taken with the brake line threading. Unfortunately when I got the the RHS of the car the installed bearing had some serious play in it - completely unsuitable, hopefully this will be replaced. Nevertheless, I now have a yellow, three wheeled car - remind you of anyone...?

Yellow with three wheels!

One thing I would mention is the threads on the brake lines have been notoriously ropey, there has been multiple instances where the unions etc. needed to be re-thread.

With the rear suspension stuck a couple of other jobs were completed:

Throttle cable
Installing the throttle cable it appeared as though there should be a clip on the front of the engine to help guide the cable - apparently this is no more... To get the cable to be the right length for the pedal, you really do have to bend the pedal with a screwdriver inserted into its axis - despite the fact that this feels barbaric. Using this technique in combination with the adjustment on the other end of the cable it was possible to get a perfect match of pedal and cable travel, which had me sat in the car pressing the throttle pedal and grinning from ear to ear!

Carpets
Looking briefly at this jigsaw puzzle, I went for the easy option of installing the seat back carpet. It required some trimming around the transmission tunnel, but otherwise went on pretty nicely - I used Everbuild Stick 2 spray which was nice and tacky and so far has done the job well.