My "new" 72 Javelin SST

The good news is the O'Reilly's calipers (probably Chinese as well) seem to be the same dimensions as the originals.

So my car sits, until Tuesday at least… finished except for the hoses. 

Got the rear diff out of the car and into the back of the Focus for the trip to Dan Curtis' shop in Phoenix.  I'm having them put new pinion, carrier and wheel bearings/seals and one-piece axles in before the drive to the AMO National at Colorado Springs in June.

In the meantime, I'm putting new bushings in the leaf springs and cleaning and painting everything at the back of the car.  My new air chisel made short work of the front bushing casings...or at least one of them,  The first one I had to beat on with a sledge hammer and chisel for about an hour before I got it out. I decided then that there had to be a better way and bought the air chisel.  Best $20 I've spent in awhile.

I already got the front end looking decent last year (with the exception of  the engine crossmember) when I rebuilt the front suspension, and I just keeping working away on the rest of the car a little at a time.  This is much more fun than when I did the full rotisserie restoration of my BBO AMX, as I can work on it as time allows and I get to drive it in-between.  Also, since this car is a driver I'm not being so anal about making sure that everything is 100% factory correct with date codes, proper markings, NOS  etc.

Not quite sure how to deal with the gas tank yet.  It's in good shape except for surface rust.  I tried some aluminum paint on a portion of it and it just looks too fake for my liking.  Undercoating will cover a lot of ills, but still I want the parts that show to look good.  It might just be easier to pull the gas tank and do it right.

Got the brakes done just as the sun was setting.  Everything went fine until I went to put the wheels back on, and the studs on the Dr. Diff axles are too long for the cap-type lug nuts of my Minilites. They bottom out before the wheel is snug.  The studs screw in from the back side, and I doubt there is enough clearance between the flange and the backing plate to change them.  I'm thinking I might have to cut them down, which will be a bit of a pain.  I'll take the wheels back off and check it out in the morning.

I didn't get a chance to drive the car yet because of this problem, but a quick check of the run out with the car up on jacks tells me that the wobble I had previously from a bent hub or axle is gone, and the diff sounds nice and quiet.  Hopefully there won't be any vibrations at speed.

Little by little the undercarriage is looking better.  The biggie left to do is the engine crossmember.  I'll probably have to support the engine and drop the crossmember to do it right, but that's a few weeks down the road yet.  Susan's Prius needs some bodywork and paint first, and if the weeds in the front yard get any bigger I'm going to need a whip and a chair to tame them.

 

Actually, it is a bit of an optical illusion.  The lining is the same length on both front and back.  I know that's not how it's supposed to be, but that's the way these shoes came.  They were new-in-box in a bunch of spares that came with my '69 AMX, so I decided to use them up.