Hub painting

The hubs are coming along nicely, a couple of coats of red oxide and then gold top coat (yep, sticking with the iron man colour combo!). Despite the photos they actually are the same colour, I think the front hubs had just dried a bit more by the time I took the photo. I've also included a couple of suspension brackets that needed to be done. I still have all four rear suspension arms to paint, but that needs a bit of set up. I might try and do that Wednesday, depending on whether the weather leaves me stranded in Leeds.

Oh, and a note to my past self... remove the driveshaft nut BEFORE dismantling the car!! I've had to do all my rear end work with driveshafts attached to the rear hubs. It's been fine when sorting out the suspension linkages and similar, but a pain in the bottom when I only need the hub on it's own. And I still don't know what the bearings are like!! They seem to turn quite smoothly, but it could be very different when the engine is trying to turn the wheel to move the car.

Ah well, not something to think about for now.

Breaking news...

It is with regret that I must announce the passing of the brake disc shields. I did all I can to save them but they were too far gone...

To be fair I actually didn't try too hard, I just got fed up of trying to get them clean so they got removed. Five out of six bolts came undone with some persuasion, the sixth needed it's head ground off. No matter, it's not as if I'm going to put replacements on!

Front hubs are now back in the bucket of Deox C for their last soak before removing, cleaning drying and painting.

Music musings....

Yes I know, audio options are not exactly top of the list when it comes to kit cars. However, the MX5 donor seats come with speakers in the head rests, and it seems appropriate that I make them functional for those longer journeys.

The plan is to have an 'invisible' audio system, that is entirely driven from my phone. Bluetooth connection to a pre-amp receiver, to a small amp that drives the seat speakers. It's similar to what I have in the tintop at the moment, a Bluetooth receiver going to it's aux-in. It obviously still needs a power source, but that's easier than an audio source.

Problem is, it's not the best quality, so I've been trying a few things. First test was to try an alternative to Bluetooth. As people may know, phones are powered by USB, but in my tintop at least it causes a horrendous earth loop when the phone is plugged in (partly why I use Bluetooth, no earth loop!). So headphone out is a no-no (unless I resolve the loop part). I do have a USB DAC which works, so I bought a phone USB hub off Ebay and tried it. The DAC works fine (plug and play, excellent!), and the sound quality is actually really good. But as soon as I plugged power into the hub, I got a high pitched squeal.

It also turns out the hub can't actually supply power, so I'll have to see what the seller says about that. If I can resolve the squeal, then it might be useful to be able to just plug the phone in and go.

To summarise, I can go with;

1. The bluetooth receiver which isn't the best quality but is easy to get working.
2. The headphone socket which is better quality but causes an earth loop.
3. USB DAC which is the best quality but I have a faulty hub so couldn't power the phone.

Time to jump on Ebay and see whether it's actually faulty or whether it's just something about my phone.

(Update). The seller accepted it being faulty and I got a refund. I've now ordered a different hub so I'll see if that is any improvement.

Hubs

The next bit of cleaning is the front and rear hubs. These came from the donor MX5, and while they were in usable condition, a few years of sitting around has left them dirty and rusty. In particular the brake dust guard on the front hub is pretty bad. Then again, that's about normal for most cars, and I tend to remove them when they get too bad. Fingers crossed these might be ok, but only time will tell.

The rears were first, an overnight soak in deox c rust remover got rid of a lot of it. I did make a bit of a mistake though. You're meant to scrub the metal on a regular basis to dislodge the bits of rust. I did do this, but I was scrubbing it in the rust remover bath. So basically I was giving the rust remover so much extra work to do!! What I should have done is took it out and scrubbed it separately, that would have allowed the rust remover to only work on attached rust. As it stands the rears are now mostly done, but I've got through an entire bottle of rust remover doing it.

For the fronts, I'll be doing it properly. I have one bucket of 1:20 rust remover (1 part remover to 20 parts water), then in another bucket I have water with washing up liquid. There's a hub in each of them now, what I'll do is every so often swap them over, and whichever one ends up in the water bucket will get scrubbed. Hopefully this will make the rust remover go a bit further.

Having said that, the rust remover has been truly excellent. It's not overly cheap (and even more expensive if you use it wrong!), but being able to just leave the part in a bucket to sort itself out is really useful. I had planned on electrolysis first, but I was having real trouble with finding a location where it wouldn't get interfered with by wildlife or the elements, where I can DC power safely, and where the gases can escape. At least the rust remover can just be done in the garage.

Pictures of the hubs to follow, I should do a before and after but because I didn't do a 'before' it will be just an 'after'. Then on to the next job.

And done!

Well, I think they came out quite nice. All seals and rubbers replaced, I reused the pistons and sliders because despite them looking pretty rough initially, they cleaned up very nicely. New bleed nipples (the old ones were just asking for trouble), but the handbrake mechanisms just needed a bit of cleaning and greasing. The last bit to add are the small chrome pad sliders, I could probably just put them on when the pads go on. They were similar to the pistons, just needed a bit of a clean.

They're now in sealed bags where they will hopefully be ok until I come to use them.

Next job, steering rack. Hmm, I wonder where I left the track rod ends that I bought...