Well before i introduce you to Mr Cockup, I'll quickly show you the addition fuse box. AK make no provisions in the loom for additional circuits, such as radio, alarm, power take off (Cig lighter socket) etc.. So pictured right is the secondary fuse box iv fitted myself. This is basically running form the battery feed on the starter motor. This gives me a number of feeds available to fit whatever accessory i feel i want. Although im not intending to fit a stereo at a later date i might just run a small amplifier with a concealed iPod connector so i can have some tunes when i park up... after all a stereo is pretty redundant with no roof and side pipes i would have thought??
So my visit from Mr Cockup starts when i was pressuring up my brakes again. I jacked the car up and as it raised the back end i saw the rear wheel drop and have a huge amount of play in the hub.... ??? not good. So after a quick strip down of the rear hub (2-3 minute job now) i was confronted with the picture on the left. As the splined drive shaft enters the hub i have not had a flat surface for the oil seal to mate against. The shaft itself has a radius edge that has been chewing the oil seal to bits as I've been rolling the car in and out of the garage, and the first drive (about 10 meters in total)
So as you see here (excuses the dust) the yoke of the drive shaft is threaded one end for the castle hub nut, and the other end has that radius edge which needs a contoured spacer shim on that then gives a flat surface for the hub bearing and oil seal to mate to as its torqued up.... with me not having this previously will explain the ridiculous amount of shims i had to put in between the drive shaft and the brake disk to give an acceptable camber.
I stripped the rear hubs of the car and gave them a good inspection because of me being a dickhead and not paying 100% attention during the strip down of the donor parts. But after some new oil seals and getting hold of a couple of the spacers... i was ready to start again with setting up the back end.... Pictured below you can see how, when fitted this gives a flat surface to the drive shaft against the hub/oil seal. If you compare the picture below with the picture above i must have been fricken stupid to have fucked this up!! I was always concerned with the excessive amount of shims between the diff and shaft and also why i couldn't get the diff output studs to penetrate the nut more than 3-4 rotations before getting tight. Now this is all sorted and i now only have 2 shims on the one side (as opposed to 8-9) and 1 on the other.
Below on the left shows the new oil seal ready to be fitted against the damaged seal that was removed.... you can see how the seal has had a groove cut out where it has been rubbing against the edge of the drive shaft.
Below right shows how iv had to clean all the crud out of the hub, before it penetrated the bearing, this would have reduced the life of the bearing and could have potentially been a disaster waiting to happen!!!
So with the camber adjusted again, all was looking good. This picture shows the face of the hub measuring 89.8 (about 1/4 degree negative camber) which is what is required as stated in the AK build manual. This measurement is mirrored when the build wheel is on and a reading taken from each edge of the rim.
I will be checking this again when i get my wheels and tyres, just to be 100% sure its set correctly..... but im 100 times happier with this now, compared to how it was previously.
So job done..... next is onto door cards and door locks, along with dash recover to hide the nibs in the carbon fiber.
