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Tunebuggery Day 6: puttering on the front hubs

drooartz

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Day six of the Week of Tunebuggery started very early morning/late night when we were woken up by the power going off in our house. More specifically, one half of our power service was out, so we had no heat but did have power in some rooms. Neither of us slept very well, and it took until about 9 am for the power company to sort it all out. One of their techs asked me where the transformer was -- I was expecting them to have that sort of knowledge!

Once all that was sorted I could finally get out into the garage and get to work. I started out installing the left side front A-arm and the associated bits and bobs. Those pieces went in with relative simplicity, and with a bit more fiddling I had them connected to the shocks and torqued properly, and had the dust shields for the disc brakes in place.

brakeshield.jpg

<span style="font-style: italic">Spindles and dust shields in place</span>

As an aside, I noticed that one of my rebuilt front shocks seems to be leaking. I'll call the builder tomorrow -- he's a well know guy who stands by his products so I expect it will be sorted out simply.

Next up was the assembly of the front hubs. Here I was aided by a drawing someone on the BCF (can't remember who) had put together that showed the proper assembly setup. This drawing happily matched what my shop manuals said, so with a minimum of fuss I had the hubs assembled and ready to go.

front_hubs.jpg

<span style="font-style: italic">Front hubs assembled and ready to go</span>

After a few quick questions online to make sure I had everything done properly I was able to pop the hubs onto the spindles and torque down the main hub nut. These went on simply, and everything seemed to line up properly.

hubs_on.jpg

<span style="font-style: italic">Hubs and discs installed</span>

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on getting the brake calipers installed. I got one on, only to realize that the bolts holding it to the spindle were hitting the brake disc. Tomorrow's job will be to sort that out and get the calipers and brake pads installed. I've also got to clean up the Bugeye front springs, as I now plan to reuse them. Hopefully the weather will improve so I can get them painted. I should be able to finish up a few other small projects tomorrow, and will be as close to getting the car back on its wheels as I'll be able to this week. Then it's on to transmission and clutch work.

Today felt a bit like the hump day. I had a bit more trouble getting going this morning, but once I was in motion was able to make some progress. I think the rest of the week will move right along, and I should be able to keep the momentum up for the rest of the spring.
 
Isn't it fun to assemble CLEAN parts? After I got my front end done, it was a work of art that I hated to get any road dust on!
 
I've been quite pleased that (so far) all the greasy dirty stuff I've had to remove has come off with a minimum of drama -- and the new stuff has mostly fit up the way it's supposed to. No complaints, and it is nice to see that pile of rebuilt parts shrinking as the car starts to look more like a car.
 
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