Differential

I then removed the diff and realised now would be a good time to have it and my gearbox reconditioned.  After a bit of research I found that ‘Competition Transmissions’ specialise in these units and were more than happy to do the work for me.

Gearbox

I then stripped the chassis down to a bare frame and took the surface rust of with my angle grinder using a knotted wire wheel and found that it was indeed only surface rust and the integrity of the metal was actually very good.  It was good to find out that no welding was necessary and that I’d caught the dreaded rust in the nick of time!

Stripping down	Nice and Clean
Shot Blasting	Does it Better

Front Wishbone

I continued cleaning the chassis up with my trusty knotted wire wheel (gone through 3 by now!) but came to the conclusion that I was getting nowhere fast and also the surface was way to smooth for paint to key to.  So I sent the chassis away (and the wishbones and anti roll bars) for shot blasting .

The diff and box was now back from gearboxman, the result was a hefty bill because the box needed a whole new gearset due to excessive wear. The diff was a straight forward rebuild with new bearings.  I fitted new hi-tensile bolts to the diff mount bracket and also changed the old bushes for nice new purple poly bushes.  I gave both of them a lick of paint with POR 15.

Now thats a Diff

Brakeline Before	While the chassis was away I polished the brake and fuel lines up!  Yes I am that sad!
And after	Brake lines after many many hours of polishing, this is a crappy job and I also did the copper fuel hoses!  (All were flushed out before being re-attached)

For some reason I didn’t take any photos for a while now, I think I just wanted to crack on once I’d got the chassis back.  I spent a lot of time removing all the bushes, the best way I found was to heat the inner part of the bush up with a blow touch and then push this part out.  Then I’d carefully cut two slots in the outer to relive the tension and then hammer it out.  There are a lot of bushes and the process is very long. 

I bought a few metres of high pressure stainless braided fuel hoses and have used this to replace all of the rubber stuff (even the low pressure), it should last far longer.  I also bought a set of Goodridge stainless braided brake lines.

I them prepped the chassis and wishbones the POR 15 Metal ready which is a etching acid, this totally cleans the metal of grease and eats into the surface providing a great surface for the paint to adhere to.  After several coats (must have been nearly ten on the out riggers!) of silver POR 15 here’s what the chassis looked like once the diff was fitted.  A vast improvement I’m sure you’ll agree!

Fitting the diff bushes was great fun! (nearly as much as removing the old ones) I discovered that they needed trimming down a little and had to turn some material off (put it in my drill and used a chisel on it!)

Bush Before

And after

 Some More pictures of Diffierential in and the brakelines and Fuel lines attached.

The underside of the body and the wheel arches were not looking great and needed a good clean.  Scrubbing the under side of the body was a horrible job and took several hours (over a few days) with white spirits, rags and brushes.  But once it was done I topped it with a coat of wax to protect it and make it easier to clean in the future.  I painted the wheel arches in a special stone chip resistant paint and topped it with black POR 15.