Back of the garage

Mr Coop Developed some odd handling charactaristics latelyo_O
After finding some play in the drivers side radius arm pivot I ordered a couple of repair kits from Mini Spares. The plan was to overhaul a spare arm I had stashed and do a quick swap, it was not to be as the spare arm was goosed.

Awkward shaped door stop
The bit poking out of the casting is what's left of the needle roller bearing. Completely worn away and the spindle had merrily chewed it's way into the casting:eek:


So the one on the car was removed and stripped and the damage assessed
Bit of wear





The bush at the other end wasn't too bad but there was slight play with the new pin so both old bearing and bush were removed with a little help from the Dremel.
I puzzled over how to fit the new bush as smacking it in with a hammer didn't seem right so I improvised and made a bush puller out of the old spindle. The new bush needs to be line reamed to size so it wont fit over the spindle but a couple of minutes with a flapper disc in the angle grinder fixed that,

Nice slide fit




You could even cut some slits with a disc cutter in the other end (if the spindle isn't too badly worn) to act as flutes, under cut them on one side and use it as a reamer and have yourself the complete radius arm overhaul tool, come to think of it that would work on Commer relay lever bushes too
grin.gif


Puller in place with new bush. There's plenty of length on the spindle to get a nut and washer on either end



Ran out of thread so needed to add washers to get the bush fully home



Perfect



Next job was to ream the bush using this



A bit smaller than the one I used for the relay levers on Harvey and Bonnie but the technique is the same. First I set it so it was a push fit into the bush then adjusted the collars half a turn at a time until I was close then went to a quarter turn until the spindle fitted nicely with a nice slide fit.

Then pulled the needle roller bearing in on the other side, I even remembered to fit the grease tube that fits inside between the bush and roller bearing.



Finished



Replaced the front suspension tie bar bushes as well as they looked a little passed their best.
Also the flasher unit stopped working the other day so had it to bits and it was full of water :( Dried it out and it sort of worked but noticed the in-line fuse that fed it was getting very hot. So today fitted new flasher unit and replaced the old fuse holder with a nice new blade type, no more hot fuse and lots of flashy flashy. I've got a few more so I'll do the other three at some point.

The car emerged from the garage after almost two weeks to see what difference the radius arm and tie bar repairs had - it was good :) Before I did the jobs the handling was weird, constant slight corrections of the steering wheel on bends see-sawing my way round as the back end was trying to steer as well (bit like a Commer;) ) and that was with only very slight play in the radius arm bearing. Now - go cart again :cool:
 
Fitted some switches and relays to the Mini for fogs and spots and to get rid of a couple of random switches I'd installed over the years. Finished for the day and pushed the garage door shut when there was a almighty bang :eek: It turns out that a WW2 bomb was found up the road in St Helens and the bomb disposal squad carried out a controlled explosion - nearly crapped meself :oops:
 
:eek: It turns out that a WW2 bomb was found up the road in St Helens and the bomb disposal squad carried out a controlled explosion.

Mercy...
 
Ahh. I’ve been looking at those sort of toggle switches from ‘car builder solutions’ . Where did you get them from?
 
Have a look for an app called Wish.. There are loads of switches etc on there for pennies but you have to wait weeks for delivery
 
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