Front Axle

11th March 2007 - After a week on the Piste (!!) back to my favourite place.........the garage!!! Put the bushes into the bottom front wishbones and temporarily test fitted the pivot shafts which I had bought second hand from Wards. There were none with the stuff I got from the Jag breakers.

4th Nov 2007 - Well, I finally got the hubs back on and the callipers fitted. I then re-set the Caster and Camber, and apart from the Steering rack that's the alignment sorted...........Thank God!!! Not the best part of the build I must admit!!

I ended up with about .10 negative camber (almost identical on both wheels. Not quite but as near as I can get with the camber shim sizes), and 4.25 on the Caster angle. GD recommend between 0 and 1 negative for camber, and between 4 and 5 on the Caster angle, so that will do for now. Will know better when its on the road.

9th Dec 2007 - Momentous day today!!! I put the wheels on and rolled it back and forwards in the garage (it was lashing down outside so I couldn't show the car the daylight!!!). The steering geometry and chassis alignment was a bit of a challenge for me, but I am content with the fact that it is pretty close to what is should be, and I can get it sorted professionally once the car is together if it causes me any problems.

It's taken an long time to get to this point. Hopefully I will still be able to stick to my schedule and get the engine in before Xmas. Just need to finish a bit more brake pipe work and "Rivnut" the rigid fuel line down (waiting for a Right Angle drill attachment I have ordered).

8th Dec 2007 - Tackled the "bump steer" today. I have read lots about it but it still isn't an exact science. I went for the GD method of using a straight edge clamped to the disc and another directly underneath, then lowering and raising the suspension arms. It wasn't to bad apart from the extremes, both top and bottom. At the very top was a little toe in, and at the bottom "droop" was a little toe out. The steering rack is as far down on the adjustments as I can get, so my plan is basically to wait untill the car is built and see what its like on the road. If its not good, I can get it sorted then (hopefully). I am probably worrying to much as some of the early Dax's and Sumo's had no bump steer adjustment at all. Anyway we will see!! So, I fitted the springs and was ready to roll out the chassis!!

3rd Dec 2007 - Its amazing how clear things become after a few drinks, a nights sleep and a bit of thinking over the problem!!! Went in the garage tonight and sorted the toe and line of thrust in a couple of hours! I first got the front hubs sorted for toe in. I clamped a 1 Metre angle bar to each disk, and then using the rotation of the tie bar got the toe in to 1mm (the distance between the rear of the two bars minus the distance between the front of the two bars equals toe in). The suggested measurement by GD is 0 - 1.5mm so I'm happy with that. I then attached my magnetic laser level onto each disk and marked the laser point on the angle bar clamped across the rear, centred on the line of thrust. I then measured the distance between these two laser points and centred them and marked a centre point on my rear angle bar. The difference between this new mark and the old Centre line of thrust then showed me the correction needed to get everything in line. This error was about 1".

I marked this correction distance on the bar next to the original mark beamed from the front disk. I then connected the laser level to the front disk again, and wound the tie rod until the laser point was in line with the new mark. I did this on both sides. I then checked the toe at the front again by connecting the two metre bars and I was still within the required tolerance. All that is needed now is to sort the bump steer. Will do that another day...........................time for a drink!!!

2nd Dec 2007 - Didn't get chance to do much last weekend, so I was determined to spend some time this weekend sorting out the front toe and alignment to the rear axle. Guessed it would be easy but I was wrong!!! Firstly, due to lack of experience, I spent about three hours trying to get the two front hubs parallel by screwing up and unscrewing the track rod ends. I didn't realise that the actual track rods rotated as well. I couldn't get the small amount of correction I needed from the track rod ends. Eventually after speaking to some fellow builders, I got the correct information and did some adjustments using the track rods themselves (turning them clockwise or anti clockwise with a mole wrench). Essentially, I put the straight edge with the centre line of thrust marked on in back across the back axle, and then beamed a laser which was attached to the front disks onto it. I spent ages trying to understand what I was doing (!!!) and eventually gave up for the evening!!!

21st Nov 2007 - Did a test fit of my steering rack this evening. Having spoken to Simon (fellow builder) regarding getting the rubber mounting rings onto the rack, he amazed me by telling me he got the things on without splitting them!! I thought there had to be another way (Simon didn't split them but with brute force, soap and determination got them on!!). I spoke to Andy at GD and they said they always split them. That was good enough for me and I took the easy option. Don't know If I will get much time at the weekend as we have a house full of guests.............but you never know!!

10th Nov 2007 - Did a temporary fitting of the steering arms and brake pipe bracket to see how it all fitted together. I need to get the steering arm bolts drilled for lock wire so I can't finish the hub off yet with springs and dampers. I really must get myself a pillar drill!!

29th Oct 2007 - Well, I got the stub axle pressed out today by a friend with a large press, but in both our opinion's the problem didn't lay there. Andrew my engineer friend has all ready built one Cobra and is on his second. He reckoned that the problem was that I hadn't got the bearings in far enough. Now I put them in with a drift and the bearing cups seemed to go as far in as they could, but Andrew thought different. So out came the drifts and a big hammer! Two swift taps and the bearing moved noticeably and seated in the correct position!! Same with the other side and the job was done. We test fitted the callipers and surprise, surprise, they fitted perfectly!!!

So at the weekend when I am next free, I can get the front hubs and callipers back on and hopefully soon after that get some wheels on the thing!! (as soon as GD get me the steering rack of course.......in fact I must ring them tomorrow....!!!)

27th Oct 2007 - Sorted the N/S this weekend which went pretty much the same as the O/S with very similar measurements. As I was on a roll I decided to fit the brake callipers. (still haven't got the steering rack from GD yet). When I tried to offer up the O/S calliper to the upright assembly it seemed to be miles out and wouldn't go on. I checked the N/S and that was the same. They both seemed to be approx 2mm out (see second pic below) as if the brake disc was to far outboard. I posed a question on the Cobra Website and it soon became apparent that everyone had the same opinion; the stub axle wasn't pulled through the upright enough. Now I torqued them both up so there must be something stopping them going through enough. There was only one thing for it, I would have to take both brake assemblies off and have a look!!

Once I got them both off it soon became apparent what the problem is. I had left zinc primer in the upright tube where the stub axle fits through (you can see what I mean on the third picture below). Even though its a very thin coat of paint, with a taper fit like the stub axle you can soon lose a couple of mil. So I will have to get both stub axles pressed out (can't shift them by hand again) and clean up the upright tubes so I have metal on metal.

Its once step forward and two back at the moment!! One good point about all this is that I will know my car inside out by the time I have it on the road!!!

18th Oct 2007 - Been away for a long weekend but I had the rest of the week off too so spent some time on the front end. I first sorted all the cock ups out from last week (!!) and have ordered more nyloc's to replace the ones I had to take off. I also swapped the GD damper brackets over and put them on the right wishbones!!

Started to sort out the caster and camber for the front axle. I followed Simons example and also used his template up against the calliper lugs for measuring the caster (don't know what I would do without him and guy's like him!!). It works well, and using the caster shims that were on the front top wishbone when I first got it (two on the front and one on the back) I ended up with just under 4.5 degrees. Now the GD manual say between 3 and 5, so I will leave it at that and try and get the N/S one to measure the same.

The camber was also good with the existing shims (on the O/S anyway). GD say it should be between 0 and 1 degree neg. I have about .25 of a degree negative which I guess will do for now. Hopefully the N/S one will be the same. Can't really check caster and camber any more till the car is on the road (!!).

10th Oct 2007 - No I have practically finished sorting the rear end, I can move onto the front. Thought I would start with a monumental cock up!!! I put the bottom wishbones on which are a soft hammer fit for the pivot shafts. That wasn't an issue seeing I was never going to take them out again............WRONG!!! Only put the bleeding wishbones on upside down!! I guess I was a bit eager and should have paid more attention to my notes but there you go. The problem was getting the pivot shafts out again. I managed it by tapping and screwing counter clockwise. Took ages but finally got them both out. Set myself a 100 lines tonight, "Must pay more attention"!!!

I also feel another mistake coming on!! Looking at the GD front damper brackets on the bottom wishbone (see below), I think I have them on the wrong wishbones. I seem to remember on the GD DVD, Andy saying that they are "handed" and the bracket is handed to the rear. I think I will need to swap them over (and get some new nyloc nuts as I will have to take the existing ones off!!). As my motto say's " People that don't make mistakes, don't make anything"!!!

Another thing I need to do is get some more spacers to go in front of the bolts holding the top wishbone pivot shaft to the chassis. The existing shims don't give me enough camber.

19th March 2007 - Finished off inserting the bearings and seals in both front hubs and connected them to the uprights. Not really sure about how tight to set them and not sure about how to set the "end float". Eventually after reading lots of posts on the CRC website, I decided to follow this quote from one of the members...."I set my front bearing as the jag haynes manual said ie tighten nut and then loosen 1 or 2 flats,but found when I put wheel back on there was a lot of play,so I did nut up 1 flat which made hub feel tight and fitted split pin.Once wheel was on no play in bearing and no binding or heating up after a run.I've checked them a couple of time since (about 300 miles) and all seems well". It makes sense so I will take the advice and see how it goes once I fit the hubs to the chassis and put wheels on them.

15th March 2007 - Sneaked into the garage tonight when I should have been doing other things (!!). I have bought a set of bearing drifts which arrived today (thanks for the idea Simon), so I thought I would go and put the outer bearings into the front hubs. Makes it easy using the drifts.

28th February 2007 - Finally started to put things together!! I put together the top front wishbones today. I got "Poweflex" bushes from Wards and they are really easy to fit. After the rave I had getting the old rubber type out, this was quite a pleasure!! Kept the camber shims as they were when I took them off. Once I get the chassis I can start thinking about the correct camber and if these need changing or altering.