Brake Pipe Bracket Dilema? - or not?

Carrying on from the last episode - I swapped over the brake pipe brackets and fitted them upside down. This gave much greater clearance to the rigid brake pipe and fitting. The rigid brake pipe was a replacement Jaguar part and had to be re-bent to suit.

However, after fitting the braided brake hoses it became apparent that the revised positioning was not ideal and the braided hoses had a tendency to kink at as the wheel has turned from lock to lock - it also rubbed on the lower wishbone.Having bent the Jaguar pipe to suit the new arrangement it dawned on me that the problem of it fouling the upper wishbone with the brackets fitted correctly could possibly be solved by re-routing the pipe.

In order to check properly I thought I would fit the steering rack and check the extreme lock positions of the wheel hubs. This was easier said than done as the large rack mounting rubber took copious amounts of hot water, WD40 and bludgeoning before the rack clamp could be fitted properly - this took quite some time.

Having temporarily fitted the rack (it needs to be adjusted for bump steer yet) I found that at the extreme lock positions with the brackets mounted the right way up - if the rigid brake pipe was re-routed there would only be the smallest of clashes with the brake pipe fitting on the bracket and the wishbone. This could only occur with the road spring fully compressed and on the bump stop with full lock applied - never going to happen in reality!

So jobs to do:

1. Drill the four new steering arm bolts for lockwire


2. Fit the steering arms and callipers


3. Make up new rigid brake pipes for the front callipers


4. Fit the braided brake hoses and check movement


5. Fit track rod ends


6. Set toe-in


7. Correct Bump Steer

I'm Going away for the Bank Holiday Weekend so I've got time to reflect on hopefully getting these things right first time!