Having had a trouble free run on it's last outing, the Red Kite Rally, there isn't a lot to do to get the Kadett ready for the Woodpecker Rally.
The torque tube is one area that will get some TLC but before I get on with that, I wanted to address a small issue that has been present,ever since we got the car.
The camber on the nearside front wheel has always been a little challenged, compared to it's off side counterpart. As there is no facility for adjustment, I needed to be a little creative. The
obvious place to start was on the upper suspension arm. The upper ball joint is bolted to the arm with 2 x 10 mm nuts & bolts. To start with, I was going to
elongate the holes.
Then it all got bolted back together ![IMG_20180809_131908788_LL[1] IMG_20180809_131908788_LL[1]](https://timotorsport.typepad.com/.a/6a00e39336e4518834022ad3a737ac200b-120wi)
While I was doing this, I noticed that the trackrod end boot
was split. An easy enough job to fit a new boot, having first checked that the joint was serviceable. Some fresh grease went in as
well.
Time to have a look at that torque tube and it's accompanying oil leak.
The only place that the oil can be coming from, is the diff pinion oil seal. With the tube off the car, it was nice to see that the oil seal can be replaced without undoing the pinion nut.
The mounting and the rubbers
looked a touch Heath Robinson to me. Before I could get to them, I had to remove the UJ yoke and tap the shaft through the bearing housing. The
centre rubber had what looked like an old fan belt put in to stiffen it up.
The two side mounting rubbers looked standard, the top and bottom ones
however, looked anything but.
One thing I noticed was the crack in the mounting, so a little welding was needed.
A bit of research and a look at a standard mounting
revealed that someone had made their own mods.
If you look carefully, the standard mounting [top one] has two slots, which accommodate push in rubbers. Ours has those welded over and two non OE blocks bolted in top and bottom. The 'fan belt' fed into the bearing carrying rubber is obviously there to beef that one up as well and probably accounts for some of the harshness in our drive train.
This is what a standard set up looks like, so you can see that the two small bushes at the bottom of the picture, have been replaced by massive great bolt in ones.