Well, you might think I’m done with brakes on the Ttiger, sadly no. After starting to look at what I could fit in a 15″ rim the choices were pretty limited. Toss in that I really did want an E-brake it makes it more difficult to find something. The Tiger has a Dana 44 rear axle that has some old world parts and time also to think about that. The plan is to remove the housing ends of the Dana 44 and replace with Ford 9″ flang ends. This is a common swap for the Jeep and 4×4 folks seeking better axles and brakes. So after looking at 9″ rear brake packages it is still a problem to find something that looks track worthy and will fit 15″ rims. Most of the Wilwood stuff uses big (too big for the tiger) rotors, most of the hot rod 9″ brakes that are E-Brake capable have a brake pad that is HUGE and really not right for the rear of a car. Then I remembered a fellow I met who worked on the RCR GT40. Rob ant Vintage Venum (www.vintagevenom.com) makes some nice parts for early mustangs and some will fit within 15″ wheels. This is what they have – You use their special billet axle bracket, a set of 1994-2000 Mustang Cobra Rear calipers with Ebrake, and same car rotors (11.66″ vented) and all done. I just got the billet bracket as I didn’t want the rotors and lines (read on).  Well,  still need to yank out the rear and do the 9″ flang conversion and get special 9″ axles with Dana 44 splines.  The Calipers come with pads and are a Ford Motorsports product so easily available from Summit for about $220. The don’t look as good as you might like but they should do fine. Picked up E-Brake Cables from Lokar and related braided lines and hardware for them as well. But guess what, more fun. While looking for slotted rotors it ends up that Wilwood makes a Cobra rear kit for stock size brakes, and basically it is the 2 piece rotors and some ok pads. You know I like Wilwood stuff, and 2 piece rotors, well that is just cool stuff so will be using that kit. More as it unfolds!

Wilwood Superlite 6 on Tiger Front Suspension

Well after a long mess of brake FAILS, I finally got something worth posting about.The second set of brackets are good and are going to work. I ended up still have some spacer problems and on one side will have a couple of shims between the caliper and bracket, but good enough. More at www.gtsparkplugs.com look at ‘The Cars’ button and navigate to the Tiger.

Well they finally arrived and out to the garage I ran! The hubs are nicely made and look strong. The weight is a couple of pounds at most. The iron ones that were basically 5 lug MustangII / Pinto disk brakes cut down to a hub are a lot heavier. Do you enjoy my accurate descriptions! Well they are nice, I used the new ARP screw in studs (super long too!) and set one up. They do come with the bearing races installed and a nice screw in dust cap, the Wilwood support had mentioned the dust caps were separate so chalk up another one for them being wrong. Never the less, I get a spindle set up and slapped the caliper bracket and hub together. My hope was the offset for the brake bracket would not change. Well FAT CHANCE given the way things have been rolling and as fate has it, it has to change about 0.030 to keep the caliper centered over the rotor. Not a big deal just need to change a small spacer thickness and be done. As soon as I do that I can weld up the mess and do the last bit of drilling and tapping on the brake bracket. Case Closed hopefully. One nice thing is that the CNC made Wilwood hubs have the studs very true, the Chinese iron hubs did not and you needed to force the long studs into the brake hat holes. The long studs with the Wilwood hub slide right in, smooth as glass. These hubs were from the parts bin as used on the Superformance brake upgrade package.

Here is a great track event at the Streets of Willow. This is with the  LA Shelby Club and I have been many times. A safe and and fun group of people head out. Any car welcome, instructors, etc. Lowest cost for 2 days of racing you will find!

LA Shelby Club Site

Here is some info from their flier-

STREETS OF WILLOW SPRINGS MAY 2 & 3, 2009 ENJOY YOUR PERFORMANCE CAR AT SPEED IN A CONTROLLED OPEN TRACK VENUE
Run your car with confidence and exercise your driving abilities in a safe environment
INSTRUCTORS WILL BE AVAILABLE AT NO EXTRA COST
Separate Run Groups for Beginner – Intermediate – Advanced
This event is structured to be fun and educational, but most of all, to be a SAFE event in which you can enjoy driving your car as it was meant to be driven. Club Members – $195 for two days of track time (non-members – $210) Space is limited so sign up early Got a friend who wants to go?

I have been working on the Sunbeam Tigers front suspension and the spindles were powder coated but the masking on the seal surface was not so good. So need to remove some baked on plastic as it be. Looked around and didn’t find much except the ‘Commercial’ solutions.

I found this on the web, cut and pasted the text but can’t remember the dang site for credit. It was a motorcycle site and I thank them (would post a link if I could find it again)

The easiest and cheapest way to remove paint and powder coating is with gasket remover. The product we use in our shop is Permatex Gasket Remover (item #80646). It comes in a 12 ounce aerosol can which is more than enough to do even large projects like engine cases. It is available from most auto parts stores. Other products, such as Zip Strip paint remover, may also work, but the Permatex product is what we have had the most success with.

Simply spray on a liberal coating to the part you are trying to strip, and wait 10-15 minutes. Be sure not to get any on areas that you do not want stripped. Make sure to wear eye and skin protection as it can irritate both.

After 10-15 minutes, the powder coating will bubble and peel. Wipe off the gasket remover and loosened powder coating with a disposable rag. You may need to reapply as some areas will be missed the first time. That’s it! Your part should be stripped down to the bare metal. Make sure to wash with wax and grease remover before you try to repaint.

Well seems problem might be solved. I’ll give it a try and report back. I’m not a huge fan Powder coating, it does look nice and is durable, but sometimes a pain…