Steve has had the good fortune to be in Devon this weekend and we decided that this would be the ideal opportunity to fit the front wheels. They started off by fitting the new ball joints. They were simply knocked into their holes, done up tight and split pinned. All very satisfactory.
In the mean time, Father fitted the tyre size plates, which had fortunately survived.
Then it was a case of fitting the wheel bearings and trying to set them up with suitable end-float. They went through the stores to see what we had by way of thrust washers and the thickest two were selected. These went on first followed by the new bearing and the outer washer. The outer washer had to be bored out to fit over the new main bearing and skimmed to thickness.
Then, after lubricating the components with steam oil, the wheel was simply lifted on and the locking collar fitted and pinned.
The resulting installation was absolutely solid! Steve skimmed another 0.015” from the washer and success! I would mention here that ‘simply lifting the wheel on’ is easier said than done...