The front brake installation went pretty smoothly and was finished on 6/13/17. The only issue was getting the correct socket for connecting the brake assembly to the spindle. The Factory Five build video (YouTube) said to use a 13 mm socket. I’ve got several 13 mm sockets; the problem is that the bolt is 12 pt. and my sockets are all 6 pt. I ordered a 12 pt. 13 mm socket from McMaster-Carr and it turns out that the bolt head is 12 mm and 12 pt. I got the correct socket at Home Depot.
I started working on the 3-link rear end. The build checklists typically have the steering rack and steering shaft assembly follow on from the front suspension build but I decided, for no particular reason, to attached the rear end next. So far, I’ve attached the lower control arms to the chassis and the upper link to the solid axle. In both cases the installation was relatively straightforward except that the spacers to be used for the upper link attachments to the chassis were about 1/8” to long and, therefore, needed to be shortened (not a trivial step; done by grinding) and the steel bushings on the lower control arms were about 1/16” too long to fit between the frame attachment ears and they needed, also, to be filed down (see below).
I was also puzzled about two other things: 1) how to fill the ‘pumpkin’ with oil; 2) the rear brake attachment method.
The first is really my ignorance about solid axles. The Moser rear end came with a differential cover without a service port. The build manual shows pouring oil into the open differential gear space but I wondered how to know how much oil to put in. The Ford dealer told me to add a bit less than 3 quarts but that seemed too imprecise. I’ve found it helps to preface my questions with ‘I’m a complete moron on these things and have a stupid question’. The Ford guy altered between bemusement and annoyance. I called Moser and the tech told me that the gear housing has a service port and the cover port is just a convenience. At least the Moser guy didn’t laugh. Well— that was easy!
As to the brake attachment: the build manual doesn’t state how to attach them. The Factory Five rear end build video shows taking off the differential cover, pulling the ‘C’ clips to remove the axle and then attaching the bracket for holding the brakes onto the axle housing. The procedure is reversed to put the axles back in the housing. The process is pretty straightforward but the brake assembly came with a different configuration of brackets than shown in the video. According to the instruction set I downloaded from F5, I don’t need to remove the axles to install the brackets as they are ‘C’ shaped rather than circle-shaped (as in the video) and will consequently slip over the axle in-place. I’ll show photos in a later post. Tomorrow I’ll clean the brackets (acetone) and paint them with POR-15 in preparation for putting them on the axle housing.