Getting all the parts together for the rear axle has proved to be quite a slow process, especially getting the lower arms and drive shafts returned that we sent off to be shortened. This has delayed us getting to a rolling chassis stage –  Even so we cracked on with the parts of the rear axle that we had, which are the rear hub, fitting new barings, seals and drive shaft UJ. Firstly we wire brushed and cleaned up the hub carriers and sprayed them silver.

Trouble with the shims

It wasn’t as simple putting the hub together as we first imagined as the barings and hubs require a spacer shim inside the hub. There are about 16 different sizes of shims from 2.22mm to 3.47mm and as we had brand new rear hubs and barings, it was almost impossible to work out at first hand which size we needed. So quite a bit of trial and error with different sized shims that Mark managed to get from his mate at work, but  when we tried them were all too tight.
Eventually after a few calls and a bit of advise, we ordered a set of the largest shims from Ed at www.jaguaraxles.com. We then assembled the hub ‘dry’ and then measuring the end-float using a dial gauge and comparing the actual end float with the desired. We could then order the correct size which arrived a couple of days later from Ed. We then disassembled the ‘dry’ hub before fitting the appropriate thickness of shim, and finally reassembling again while greasing up all the bearings.
This was quite a lot of bother and I can tell you, but got there in the end.