Front Axle
While the body was being acid dipped and coated, I decided I would tackle the front axle.
The front axle was in a pretty bad state and had already been repaired before, possibly more than once. It did not look as though there would be much chance of repairing it so I figured I could probably make a new one although it would lack the detail of the original. The old one was actually so distorted it was not very good as a pattern either.
I got some 30mm x 2mm flat strip from the local B&Q store which would do for the upper and lower sections plus the straight run as shown in the illustrartion below.
The upper and lower parts were bent to shape using the old axle as a rough pattern. This was quite tricky as the old axle was quite distorted and unsymmetrical so it was quite difficult to know what the original shape was. I figured that only an expert would really know the difference and I didn't much care if it was not like the original so proceeded to start welding it together.
The end cheeks (4 off) were cut to shape from 1mm steel plate and the whole lot welded together. My welding skills are a bit developmental though but it was good practice.
You can't see in the picture below but the slots for the axle stubs were cut out after the axle was welded together.
Some short pieces of 20mm x 4mm flat bar were welded into the ends to form a better swivel base for the stub axles rather than run on the 1mm sheet steel side cheeks.
After a bit of fettling and some plastic filler to hide the welds on the side cheeks it started to look good and was really quite solid. The steering arm bracket from the old axle was cut off and welded in place on the new one.
There was a great deal of slack in the steering linkage due to the sheer amount of wear. Much of this was remedied by a spot of weld followed by a filing to reduce the ovality of the holes. Not perfect but much better.
Another non standard feature which I thought was worthwhile is the steering limit stops which stop the steering rods from banging into the bodywork. On my car these holes were baldy worn and even split although the wear was exacerbated due to the sag of the front axle.