DRIVE SHAFTS AND BRAKES

The new drive shafts arrived from E J Wards, a huge box full of plastic balloons, bubble wrap and scrunched up cardboard and there they were, nestled right at the bottom of the box were the two shafts.

These new ones are a major advance on the originals, the two UJ's have grease nipples fitted and the splined shaft is Rilsan/Teflon coated which means that even under accelerating loads the shafts will still slip and stop the Stag twitch. The splines are also concealed within a metal tube, rather than just rubber bellows and also have a grease nipple fitted. There is no big rubber boot fitted over the inner UJ which means that there is easy access to all the nipples for subsequent servicing, something that the old shafts had never experienced in the previous 40 odd years.

 However before I could fit the shafts I used the transmission jack to push up the the underside of the trailing arms to compress the road springs, the arms are then held in place and the springs in compression by bolting the arms to the bottom end of the  shock absorbers. For the moment I connected the old shocks as getting to the top bolts to remove them is difficult in the confines of the garage, but it will be easy peasy when she is back on her wheels and out of the garage.

Without the rubber boots the new shafts slipped through the large hole in the trailing arms easily, ensuring that the brake back plates were correctly placed on the six studs first. Then it was just a case of gradually tightening down the six lock nuts per trailing arm and then the four nuts and bolts to connect shafts to differential.

The above photo of the connected left shaft was taken laying on my back, looking directly upwards.

I forgot to take any photos whilst I puzzled out how to refit the brake shoes to the near side brake. I constantly referred to my photos and printed off diagrams from workshop manual and eventually worked out how the self adjusting ratchet operated, which way round and which holes the three springs hooked into. The right side brake shoes took no time at all and soon the drums were both  back in place.

The above is a fairly crap photo, you can just about make out the new copper brake pipe connecting the SS flexible hose to the rear slave cylinder. Bleeding brakes tomorrow. Oh by the way my garage creeper, seen in above photo, came in very handy whilst I was tightening the shaft to differential nuts and bolts, saved a lot of neck ache. Bleeding brakes tomorrow,