Eleven Build - Day 1

The chassis is now up on build stands with the front and rear body clam shells removed.
The build guide starts with the front suspension, a reasonably straight forward assembly with a few minor tweaks needed to bushes, chassis mounts etc to get everything installed.  I ran into a minor issue with the lower shock absorber bushes being 38mm when wishbone bracket is 32mm, I cut down the bushes to 32mm and all is fine, Protech sell 32mm bushes for £1 each so I might get replacements later.  Fitting the upright there seems to be negative castor in the geometry that isn't fully catered for in the wishbone brackets which, coupled with the need to compress the top bushes to fit in the bracket makes things tricky but fitting the bottom mount first worked best.

I cut the steering rack and track rod ends down by 1/4", cleaned up both threads using a 1/2" 24 TPI tap and die to make sure I have as full a range of adjustment as possible fitted the steering rack.  The n/s bracket needed to be fettled to clear the chassis weld and then given a quick coat of satin black.

Fitting the new callipers next, they are the standard Midget ones and I used all new bolts from Moss, the original setup has a locking plate to hold the flexible brake hose and a locking tab, both were needed to stop the top bolt thread binding on the upright without clamping the calliper.

I left all the bolts loose at this stage so that I can have an initial go at setting the camber and toe even with the suspension at full droop I want to at least get them the same and also to make sure that I have plenty of adjustment available for the future, I also need to find some washers for the top upright bolts.

The next step in the build guide is to fit the rear axle so I spent the rest of the day getting started on it's refurbishment.  The first jobs were cleaning powder coating off the rear axle differential mounting studs and cleaning the blasting media and debris out of the internals with lots of petrol until repeating the process resulted in nice clean fluid.  I finished off the casing by fitting a new breather and then moved on to the differential giving it a good clean and replacing the input seal, a possible cause of an oil leak whilst on the donor.