|
With the front end pretty well finished I proceeded
to the rear. As I’ve already said I’ve cleaned and painted the transaxle so all
that’s necessary is to bolt it
in. I have installed urethane transmission mounts to mount the motor a little
more securely and they have the noise and vibration dampening features like
stock mounts. At a later time, I discovered that the urethane mounts were still
too flexible, so I fabricated a housing to capture the front mount. This was
basically a can that the mount fits into that would keep the vibration
dampening aspects of the urethane but would not allow the urethane to flex from
torque.
I have already rebuilt the rear brakes. I have cut
many corners on this project to try to save money but it’s foolish to scrimp
where safety is concerned.
I also bought and installed a new set of emergency
brake cables. As always the cables were too long and had to be shortened. The
standard procedure would be to cut the inner cable or double it over on itself
and clamp it together with a bunch of cable clamps, but I choose a different
method. The way that I like to shorten cables is to first cut the threaded end
off of the cable. Next drill a hole longwise through a bolt, insert the cut end
of the cable through the drilled hole in the bolt and weld the end of the cable
to the bolt. This is accomplished much easier with a heli-arc welder but if
you’re careful this can be done with a M.I.G. welder. After welding make sure
that the threads have been restored so that they can be screwed into, in my
case, spherical rod ends. It takes a few more tools to do it this way but I
think the end results are much cleaner. You can always hire a machine shop to
do this part of the job, but be prepared to pay nearly $100 for the job.
The rear hairpins go on next. They go on real easy
but will require a rear end wheel alignment later on.
|
