Hey there are even pictures today.
First job was to replace the clutch slave cylinder. Why? Hmm, well just being thorough I guess. I still had a noise in neutral with the clutch up and engine running which went as soon as you touched the clutch. looking at the system, I figured swapping it out would make sense. Bought a Milner's unit. Looked very nice, well made and finished and cheap too. Oh, hang on. Inside the connection port for the fluid there was a small brass cone / gland seal like you have on brakes. As the connection is a banjo fitting this didn't seem right. First job was to get that out. Wasn't hard. Old unit was showing internal wear and such. But the internal return spring was much bigger than the Milner one. I thought about putting the new internals into the old cylinder until I found they were totally different bore sizes. So new cylinder and piston but used the old and better looking actuator rod. Bled with the vacuum bleeder in seconds. Clutch much improved I have to say and the jingling noise has gone.
Next job was castor correction. I'd had some more plates made up to play with but it soon became apparent that there is only so much castor you can correct with plates and it wasn't going to be enough. I had been drawing this out al week and was sure it was the answer, but no.
So I started to make some drop brackets for the rear mounting point. After a wiggle or too it was clear that this would give me the diff angle I wanted. I made a card template like Ben would have done, drew 4 plates out on a sheet of steel and cut them with least number of cuts and wastage. I milled them all to the same dimensions just they looked half proper, stack drilled them and set about welding them in place. I am not a very good vertical welder but I did lots of prep, had the plates clamped well in place and gave it a go. I will still weld a little internal support in here but it went dark.
Bolt alignment is spot on and I'm happy that I got a good weld on there. Some bits don't look as good as others, but it's a long seam and I have no doubts about it being strong enough and I'll weld the ends over tomorrow with some plate to make it a box.
OK so what are the results? Well I am pleased to say that the diff pinion is now around 0.5 degree forward angle and the T box around 2.0 degree back angle so things are much much closer. I took the prop, split it and set it in perfect phase. I didn't get as far as Tesco before I turned round. There was some pretty serious vibration. I know it sound a bit contrary, but power delivery felt much smoother and certainly castor in terms of steering feel was heaps better. It is pretty certainly the prop. Now general consensus on the front prop was that one one had one aligned perfectly back to front on their 80. And the green one which I know is factory fresh, is opff set too. So tomorrow it's out with the spanners and I'll reset it. I don't get how that works if I am honest but there is very strong evidence on the net that offset props are an accepted set up. Go figure. It's going to be a boring morning I feel. But at least my prop angles look normal.
I decided when drilling the bolt holes to remove the 18mm forward set I'd put on to stop the tyres rubbing on the old suspension. Great move that was. Guess what, yep they rub in reverse on full lock again. Progress. Not.