the axle was a swap meet buy, a good deal but i doubt it was ever driven with this combination of shafts and brakes,
We're gonna stay with the rear drum brakes as they generally work well but the centering boss on the shafts was far smaller than the drum centre hole which would cause pedal judder when applied,
luckily these are aftermarket shafts that have a bolt-in ali centre boss,
easy fix just turn up a new pair on the lathe with a locating register and fixing bolt.
the other issue was the ali bearing retainer plate was fouling on the crossover bar between the brake shoes,
a quick sand off sorted that,
goes to prove that just because an item comes assembled dont assume its correct?
Gotta go through a bunch of pics on the exhaust as it was a mammoth task,
heres a few for starters...
Luke chose to go with Flowmaster mufflers but the stainless variety,
for some reason they only come in a painted finish?
going with a 2.5" system here to be future proof for if the power levels increase
had a quick sand off of the paint finish as they needed welding too also and added a 2.5" 3 bolt flange to the front of each muffler which means i could add this bend in front of the flange further back for clearance which you'll see why later,
first part of the fabrication/fitting was to mount the mufflers,
two at the rear to stop the mufflers rotating and one at the front, all rubbers in compression.
Kept the slip joint at the rear of the mufflers as the tube has to pass through the 4 link crossmember tubes,
As the exhaust was quite a task in itself theres quite a few pics,
excluding the flanges, headers and mufflers theres something like 57 separate pieces of tube in this system,
at about 8" of weld per joint plus the 10 flanges that needed welding, balance pipe and all the mounts, answers to the nearest yard of weld will do
with an exhaust or headers i always start with the hardest part first, in this case the drivers side from the manifold back,
gotta say big thanks to Steve Lang for providing most of the parts inc tube, bends, flanges and mufflers and as always a speedy service,
as i knew i'd need a pair of slip joints i took an offcut to a local guy i know that has a tube expander to get two ends done,
started easy from the manifold back,
It soon changed, had to not only get around the gearbox but also the brake pedal, pushrod, servo, master cylinder and chassis tubes,
Heres the slip joint with the expanded piece covering the front,
And finally into a flanged joint at the muffler,
on to the other side,
same but different, always set exhausts up with a full size starter, you never know when you'll need one and thats all you can get?
not exactly mirror image but similar to the muffler,
both sides have a slip joint at the same place to ease fitting and removal.
More exhaust,
chose to fit a balance pipe, no room for an X pipe so the next best thing,
fitted this just behind the front prop loop and before the mufflers,
did this in 2" tube opposed to the 2-1/2" system as it doesn't need to be full size, just enough to bleed off pressure from one system to the other,
More...
added a pair of cotton reel mounts half way down the front part of the system to control movement in these vital areas as its all fairly close,
front section done and with the band clamps in place,
used Milltek stainless clamps they're the best i've found so far,
yeah i know its all welded here, not all the pics in order
Nearly at the back, phew...
a few section of bends and a flange each side to wrap around the fuel tank location,
Once again not exactly hold in place and weld.
cap one end off with a bung or tape and then fill the tube with argon until the air is removed and replaced with argon,
Heres the centre section with some timber tension pieces to stop the ends pulling together due to the fillet parts of the welds on the balance pipe,
hot tip... as argon is heavier than air, tilt the tube upwards while pumping the argon in and weld from the bottom joint upwards, it saves waiting and wasting gas while its filling and pumping the air out.