The Rear Axle.
The axle used is from the MK11 Ford Escort 1600Ghia donor car and has a differential ratio of 3.45 :1. The mounting brackets for the suspension arms were set up, levelled and tack welded into place. My rear trailing arms have been made with M10 x 1.5 spherical Rod End bearings instead of bushes as the book. I kept the mounting brackets full width as per drawing in case I ever changed to bush mounted arms. Because the rod ends are only 14mm wide, they are centralized by using a 15mm aluminium spacer on each side to fill out to the width of the mounting bracket. (see pictures for more detail).
E-Bay once again supplied a set of 4 coil over shock absorbers for the Locost suspension. The lower mounting for these made the body sit too high, so the height was modified to accommodate this. The Panhard Rod was made with M12 x 1.75 Rod ends instead of bushes once again. This was offered up and a mounting tacked into position on the axle bracket. The panhard rod keeps the axle in a central position and stops it floating sideward. The rod ends are adjustable and allow accurate set up. I now had an axle in position and floating.
The wheels and tyres were second hand from a MK5 Ford Escort car and although looking sweet, were about to cause me big problems. The width of the tyre and the Offset of the wheel meant that the tyres rubbed on the trailing arm mounting bolts. I used 3/4inch alloy wheel spacers, but spent some extra time securing them to the rear drums with neat countersunk screws and locknuts. I now had to buy and fit extended wheel studs. The axle has a precision boss on each end to centralise the wheels, they have a hole in the middle (counterbore) which fits snug on the boss. The wheel spacers were thicker than this boss , so a precision extension was turned on a lathe and welded on each end to locate the wheels central. A lot of work for the same result but remember Safety First. The other alternative is buying a new set of wheels with a better offset, to make the tyres sit wider. With nearly every body selling Car Tyres now, you have chance to get very good prices,
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When I was fully satisfied with this set up, it was removed and all the brackets fully welded. Everything was finally painted with Por15 black paint to match the Locost chassis and the wheel spacer boss set up, now looked part of the axle. The Ford Escort axle fitted in position, all adjustments made, the 10mm and 12mm locknuts fully tightened and the rod end bearings given a dose of good quality grease, Job Done!
