Rear Suspension - Pt 2 Lower arms and Rear Hubs

Now for the lower suspension arms. These both went on really well, just needed to add spacers to fill the gaps for bolting securely. These were loosely bolted for now as I want to ensure that the rubber suspension bushes are not clamped in the wrong position else they will wear our more quickly or in the worse case, tear.

I had a few issues when I came to locate the hub assemblies but only on the nearside. It was a choice of grinding and re-painting or spreading the gap a couple of millimeters as bracket had closed a little when welded. I took apart an old bearing puller and with the aid of a few nuts and a length of M12 studding came up with a spreader which has worked much better than feared.

Both rear hub assemblies now attached to the lower wishbone. Don't forget to add the handbrake cables else it can be a little fiddly to attach them later.

Sadly I forgot to take photos when I was setting up the camber and attaching the driveshaft's but needless to say this took quite a bit of measurement to get the correct angle on both sides. On the drivers side it was a doddle and required no changes but the nearside was a different matter. Originally there was a 3.5mm stepped spacer along with the tone-wheel. I needed a 6.5mm spacer as a total measurement., I do not like lots a thin shims so decided to remove the tone wheel and the stepped 3.5mm spacer and obtain a solid 6.5mm spacer as per the drives side. After finding the correct part number in the parts catalogue it was ordered from SNG Barrett, arriving a few days later. Using this spacer meant that the drive shaft is still perfectly located and concentric to the diff stub shaft. All the time whilst checking for the gap you have to remember to ensure that the hub is the allotted 150mm from the top of the chassis.

Just a couple of comments about when I was fitting the handbrake cables to the rear hubs. The spigot on the end of the cable was a little loose in the hub body. I added a bit of shrink sleeve which perfectly took up the gap and made it nice and snug.