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Revolution Alloy Wheels and a small Corsa

30th June 2005.
My Ebay luck was holding out I had won my tyres and wheels for £205.00 for the complete set. I rang Ben in the morning and arranged to pick him up on the way as we where going to head into central London and with the cash I was carrying I wanted to be sure I was not going to be robbed. The journey into London was quite good and we arrived outside the seller’s block of flats and rang the door entry system corresponding to the flat. A young man came down and said he had the wheels in his garage loaded in the car and would bring them round. The car came around and he unloaded them off the Car.

They where perfect! I new the minute I saw them they were just what I had visualized and asked him about them. He said that he was once going to build a Beach buggy for his partner but had decided to build her something different so he was selling them. I agreed to purchase them and with Bens help we squeezed them into the back of my Vauxhall Corsa. They only just fitted. We soon where on the way home and made good progress returning home at around 9:00pm.

I wanted to try them so we off loaded the car and I went out for beer and Ben started to fit the new wheels onto the Chassis. They had come with some rear spacers to space the rear wheels further out by 1 1/2".

The wheels bolted on with the bolts he had given us, but we had already known one of the front bolts was missing. This was to turn into a long search to find a replacement that eventually ended in me having to have one made out of stainless steel at a local engineering company. The pictures where taken on a mobile phone so are not very high quality.

Wheels Technical:
Revolution 14 3A Red HR - 5 spoke painted.
tyres : front : BF Goodrich all-terrain, 215/75x14.
rear : BF Goodrich all-terrain, 265/50x15.

Front disk conversion.

29th June 2005.
I had decided much earlier in the chassis rebuild that I wanted to change the braking system on the buggy as the improved engine and the lighter chassis would enable the buggy to perform at higher speeds. The benefits of fitting disk braking to the front of the car are well known and it is fairly common in the world of motoring to fit this combination in commercial vehicles. It has been proven that disk braking systems provide better continuous braking as they dissipate heat better than drums and they are also less likely to have brake fade than drums.

Changing the braking system was going to be an expensive option as the conversion kits that are advertised vary in price and in quality. I decided to try and locate 2nd hand camper van front spindles, disk and callipers as one whole unit one for each side. I located these in a beetle/camper van repair workshop and paid around £20.00 for the pair.

The braking assemblies where taken apart and it was apparent immediately that the disks needed replacing and the likelihood was that the callipers where seized as well. This meant that I would only be able to salvage the spindles and the backing plates from the setups. I cleaned the spindles up and repainted them and sent the backing plates away to be zinc plated by the hot flame spray process provided by AC Blasting in Flimwell, East Sussex. When they returned I was able to bolt them on to the clean painted spindles.

I bought the Disks and new bearings from Ajay car components. They provided them on a next day delivery service. The callipers I found were advertised on eBay and had been sitting on a garage shelf for the past 5 years on eBay Item No 4578950519 for £67.00. They where in very good condition and just needed painting with calliper paint and they where ready to go.

With the new disk spindles kits made up, it was time to remove the front brake drums and spindles. These are connected by ball joints to the front suspension arms. Fortunately I new these bearings had been renewed recently so the old spindles could be unbolted and the old component replaced with the disk version. The spindles where bolted in at the bottom first and the lower suspension arm was jacked up with a small trolley jack until it met the top suspension arm and the top ball joint fell into the top hole of the spindle. It is important when doing this conversion to remember to leave the brake fluid cables attached to the old drums. This prevents spillage of brake fluid. Once the new disk spindles where in place the brake fluid lines could be unscrewed from the drums and screwed into the disk calipers. This was repeated for each side.

Once the disk spindles where in place the whole brake system was bled to remove any air that had entered the braking system. The brake fluid level was checked and topped up.

Brake Technical:
FDB732 Premier Brake Pads TAR732
*826911 Brake Discs
*FPSFBK041 WHEEL BEARINGS
4578950619 VW Beetle new brake callipers