You Have to Roll With It

Having finished the assembly of the front and rear suspension, it's finally time to get the wheels on the chassis and push it out into the sunlight. I realize this post is appearing in winter, however, this work was originally done in May, so yes I’m a little behind with the blog posts, but that explains the sunny pictures

Chassis with front suspension installed.

Installing the Brake disc and calipers 

As shown before I have serviced and repainted all the brake calipers. So before adding the wheels, I will quickly mount the finished calipers. These, of course, will not work yet, for many reasons, but most importantly and obviously, because there is no brake pedal! 

Each caliper is secured to the upright/hub carrier by a pair of M12 bolts. For additional security/old fashioned-ness, to keep these bolts in place, locking wire is paced through each pair of bolt heads and twisted tight. This is recommended by Jaguar for the XJ40 and is the reason for the hole through the bolts for my rear calipers. However, oddly, the bolts for the front caliper carrier were not predrilled. So the first job is to buy some new sharp 2.5mm drill bits, and carefully drill a single hole through each of the four front caliper bolts. Luckily this is a simple job, which if you take your time and keep the drill vertical (ish) it is easy to do. 

Caliper carrier bolt in the vice with a hole drilled through the bolt head. 

With the bolts drilled, its finally time to mount the brake calipers to the chassis. Starting at the front, slide each of the old brake discs over the 5 wheel studs. Once each brake disc was correctly seated on the hub using a little help from a rubber mallet (a few excess paint issues easily overcome) it is secured in place with a grub screw (SNG part number: SF605047J ). I will be replacing these old parts out for new discs (and pads) before I drive the car on the road, but for now, I’m simply using the old ones whilst I gain confidence in my homemade brake lines and brake bleeding (next steps).  

Rebuilt caliper mounted to front upright.

The calipers carried then slide on around the brake disc and fasten to the front uprights with the freshly drilled bolts. 

Calliper bracket mounted to rear hub carrier (forgot to take photos of the fronts).

The caliper (with brake pads fitted) then fits over the brake disc and is secured in place with the slide pins, which pass through the rubber collars and into the carrier. The slide pins are given a small counting of silicon grease to ensure they slide freely. There is also a long metal 'spring' which fits into the two small holes on the front face of the caliper and loops around the bottom brake pads and holds them in place.

Rear caliper fitted, again forgot to take photos of the fronts.

It's then a case of lifting the wheel and fitting it to the hub. The wheels are secured in place with the cleaned donor wheel nuts. Since this fitment is only for moving the chassis around the garage and that I’m sure I will need to take them off in the near future for another job, I am not going to torque these to the correct specs. 

Offside wheel mounted to chassis.

Nearside wheel being expertly fitted.

As for the rear, I have already fitted the brake discs so it is simply a task of repeating the process of fitting the brake calipers, and then the rear wheels! For the rear, as I had already fitted a new brake disc I also fitted new brake pads as well.

Rear wheels on and the first sight of a rolling chassis.

It finally Rolls 

Next comes the simple task of pushing/rolling the chassis out of the garage for its first short little journey. To aid the steering at this point the steering rack was disconnected from the front uprights. Then with one person per front wheel, the chassis can be guided back out of the garage... minding the garage wall. 

First time sitting in my Fred Flintstone style AK Cobra.

After the obligatory selfies sitting in the rolling chassis, it was clear how dirty the garage floor had become over the last 6 months of work. 

The state of the garage floor below the chassis.

After a quick clean and mop, the chassis was pushed back into the clean garage ready for the next stage of the build process, the brake lines or the fuel tank… not sure yet. 

Rolling chassis back in the clean garage!