The 4/4 was driving sweet and true to form BUT the MOT fail last week woke me up, with need to pay the girl more attention. The two fail points were a worn tyre and fused lights; those two items being an easy fix. Advisories have been sorted too and the road test was rewarding.
Front wheel bearing cleaned out with new grease added, sliding pillars ditto and wrapped with chamois leather protection. Rack and pinion cleaned out, re-greased and new rubber boots fitted. New track rod end ball joint fitted. Universal joints on steering column and prop shaft greased. Front brake discs cleaned up. Catches and hinges oiled. Two new tyres fitted.
First road test revealed I had not sufficiently tightened the rack tube onto the rack itself (the toothed inner piece). Result was excessive play at the steering wheel and quickly rectified. Re-test booked for this afternoon.
A tip for retaining the toe-in adjustment I discovered by way of using a length of garden wire clamped to the leading edge of the brake discs. By putting a sharp bend in the wire and carefully removing it until the job is finished the wire can be re-clamped to one disc and fine adjustments made to the track rod ball joint until the bends at each end of the wire coincide with the edges of both discs.
The wire has to be threaded through the holes shared by the track rods so that it remains in a straight line.
Now passed MOT my 4/4 is happy and its driver too.
