March 2016

26). Rear end disassembly

With the front end mostly done, I removed the rear wheels and began working on disassembling the rear of the car.

All the blue tape you see in the engine bay was from when I was assembling the suspension and steering rack. With me climbing in and out to gain access to the bolts I couldn’t reach, I taped up the areas I thought might be prone to scratching.

I told you I get a little carried away with tape sometimes.

Removing the rear suspension was pretty straightforward and nothing fought me too bad at this point. I was also able to finally remove the brake and fuel lines that had been so stubbornly stuck to the car too.

With the suspension components out of the car, I began restoring them.

The number on this mustache bar is probably a part number, and I think there was more to it than the “5545” I could see, but I thought it’d be a nice touch to add it back to the bar, even if it would probably never be seen again.

I remember this differential mount was a pain. With so much grease, dirt and rust I didn’t think it would clean up very well.

But with enough wire wheeling (which there was plenty of) and some paint, I think it came out just fine.

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25). Steering rack

I couldn’t find any good before pictures of the steering rack, but I did find a picture of the suspension assembly with the steering rack in it when I originally took it out of the car.

I guess I must have lost some pictures from around this time, because I also can’t find the disassembly and reassembly of the steering rack.

But what I did was, took it apart, cleaned and re-greased all the parts, followed the same process to refinish the outside and put the entire assembly back together. I installed all new bushings and tie rod ends as well.

The boots on either end however, were just refurbished since they were in good physical shape.

Once done, I attached the steering rack to the cross member in the car. Here’a before and after shot for comparison.

I also found these uni-washers or whatever they’re called, bent them flat, repainted them and put them on the car.

Then I put the tires back on and called the front end complete for the time being.

I did take a break from refurbishing parts and installed sound deadening on the floor boards for a change of pace though.

And as usual, I didn’t think to paint the seat supports until after.

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24). Brake calipers & hub

When I bought the 240, the guy I bought it from mentioned that he’d replaced a couple items on the car not too long ago. One of those items were the front wheel bearings. Which true to his word, looked to have been recently replaced.

So I went about refurbishing the hub without replacing these bearings. As usual, I cleaned up the part with a wire wheel, then taped off the areas I didn’t want paint on. Next came rust proofing then primer making it ready for paint.

Have I mentioned that I get a little carried away at times? Well this time, as with most times, it was with tape.

After I had given it a coat of primer, I applied a coat of matte black and attached it to the strut assembly already on the car. I also added the radiator to the engine bay, which would eventually have to come back out. I just wanted to see if it still fit properly and what it looked like against the new paint.

Next on the menu were the brake calipers. Like all the other parts so far, I wanted to keep the original and rebuild to the best of my ability. This meant taking the caliper all the way apart, including separating the halves.

While this may be the easiest way to completely rebuild these brake calipers and refinish them to a like new appearance, it may have not been the best idea to do so.

The reason I say that is, although I feel that they look great and will undoubtedly function much better now that they’ve had new seals and pads installed, I’ve had a few bad experiences with brakes on other projects recently that leads me to believe that these will be a nightmare.

Even the most basic of braking systems can be a pain in the ass with as little as a fluid change and with this car I will have rebuilt the entire braking system and ran all new lines once it’s all said and done.

Fingers crossed, but when the times comes, I’ll most likely be able to look back at this and say I told you so, to myself.

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