Rear Axle Work

The first order of business was to build a stand to hold the brakes above the table for disassembly. Then an inspection of the differential gears. As suspected, the thrust washers are worn out.

Rear brakes look very good.

First step to replacing thrust washers, pull an axle.

Next remove differential wheels and pinion gears and put fresh thrust washers on each.

Putting it all back together, a bit more complicated. The pinon pin was very tight coming out, so it spent the night in the freezer. Next, the pinon gears are difficult to install opposed to one another, and even harder to keep in place while installing the pin. The trick is to use a couple of small sockets to hold the gears and washers in place while the frozen pin is tapped into place. Press pin installed, all done.

The next task was to put new seals on each end of the axle. This went smoothly, and form a gasket was used on the seal flange to keep the oil in, there is no gasket on this part from the factory and it makes a mess of the axle.

Backing plate all cleaned up.

Brake shoes back on, and drum turned smooth.

Almost forgot, the brake pistons were a mess, but were easy to clean up.

Rear End Removal

The day has come to remove the rear end. The right side has a broken axle strap.

Left side looks okay.

The diff and axle are leaking from every possible point, new gaskets and seals all around.

The solid bump stops need to be replaced along with all the rubber parts, but the rest of the metal is in good condition.

Axel out and drive shaft removed.

Springs are in good condition.

Transmission and Clutch

This obsidian monolith may or may not be a transmission.

This is definatly a transmission.

Things look fine in here, I will be sticking to seals and gaskets.

Oops, what's this? The clutch is toast.

A quick spin on the lathe and .009 inch later the flywheel is ready for service again.

A new clutch kit is coming to remedy the remaining issue.

Engine Tear Down

Transmission coming off.

Clutch removed.

Flywheel and engine end plate removed.

Head off, head gasket looks good.

Head and valves are dirty but look healthy.

Water pump is in fine shape, shaft and bearings are good.

Timing chain coming off next, tensioner foot has some minor wear.

Lifters have some wear, need to measure cam lobes.

Oil Pan off, bottom end is next.

Pistons out, broken compression rings on piston one and three.

I found some metal in the oil pan, and here is where it came from, number four crank bearing, it melted.

The scoring on number four should be able to corrected with machining and an under sized bearing.

The oil pump suffered collateral damage from the number four bearing melt down, they just don't hold up to pumping metal bits very well. This is a surprisingly cheap replacement part, so not a big deal to replace.

Finally, the last wear item to report, the rocker shaft has reached the end of it's life, but it's another cheap replacement part so there is no reason to try and save it.

Engine and Transmission Removal

Hood off and car lined up under the hoist on the overhead girder.

Carbs off, manifolds next.

Hoist leveler hooked up, ready to go.

Decided to get the exhaust completely out of the way so I can move the car easier, later.

Going smoothly.

Engine and transmission out! That was the easy part, now the real work starts.

Test Drive

Along with the brake parts, I also received new air filters and housing seals, with those installed the car is ready for a test drive to determine if there are any other drivability issues that will need to be addressed during the drive train tear down.

Now that the engine is warmed up it idles at about 900 rpm and the oil pressure is about 30 psi.

When revved a bit oil pressure rises to about 60 psi, all good signs.

    On the test drive the little British car went well, it would accelerate from any rpm without hesitation, and the brakes worked much better. There was no knocking and it pulled well to about 4500 rpm, then it got a little flat. Some more tuning may be order, but there was nothing that jumped out as an issue to deal with.

    The engine, transmission and differential will be removed next in order to replace all gaskets and seals. It seems like a better way to stop all the leaks than removing all the fluids... just kidding. While everything is out of the way I will refresh the engine bay and underside of the car. There is a lot of grease and grime on everything, I want to be able to appreciate any new leaks that emerge, and then stop them; or if I am really lucky there won't be any leaks for a while. English cars, what can you do?

Front Brakes

Calipers and rotors off.

Caliper pistons and seals removed.

Calipers cleaned and ready for reassembly with new seals.

New rotor installed on hub.

Hub ready to be shimmed and torqued.

Reassembly done, ready to bleed.

All done, ready to test drive.