Ed Batchelor Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Can anyone offer their opinion on the fit up of the rear hub caps / drive flanges call them what you will, on a Matador. I had the rear diff out at the weekend in a bid to gain equal ratios front to rear, all went quite well (not sure how fenleys managed it in anything like quick enough time to be worthwhile for a return journey though - see Antar Mikes comments elsewhere!) however the cap on one side does not seem to be pulling up as far as the other, it engaged with the half shaft ok and went on square but there still seems to be a small gap between the cap and the hub, neither side seems to pull completely together but one looks a bit bigger than the other. I did note a lot of corrosion between the two mating surfaces (which all got cleaned before refitting) so I suspect they ony touch in the middle near the bearing which stands slightly proud. Any ideas or am I worrying about nothing? Incidentally I couldnt get onto the rear 1/2 shaft bolts with a normal socket so made up a crows foot "special" to do the job as the outer "bollard" restricts access. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philb Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Ed, is that special spanner so you can get at the back of the bolts that hold the driving flange onto the hub, without taking the wheel off? I know Mike has done this job before so he might tell us but I thought you only needed to take the bollard off to draw the half shaft out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antarmike Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 (edited) The whole idea of the bollard cap is that by spinning this off you can withdraw the half shaft. You don't need to touch the bolts holding the driving flange to changeeither the half shafts orthe diff. The hub cap/bollard is tight when the internal shoulder (at the end of the internal female thread) bottoms out against the end of the male thread on the driving dog flange. There will still be male thread showing on the Driving dog flange when this happens and it is normal to see this exposed thread when the cap is fully home. The Bollard cap spanner is part Z46 and is an octagonal spanner with 99.5mm across flats. There is no special tool listed to get to the Driving Dog Flange bolts listed in the technical handbook. Edited April 4, 2011 by antarmike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Batchelor Posted April 4, 2011 Author Share Posted April 4, 2011 My first thought was that the bollard must come off since with it in place the other bolts are pretty inaccesible! In any case I cut a suitable spanner to fit the bollard but even the use of a 6' bar on the end of it did not result in it shifting. Since my postwar manual does not mention the bollards, and merely the ring of retaining bolts I gave up on unscrewing the centre bollard and did it the hard way. The gap I am referring to is between the whole end cap and the hub. Even when the 8 bolts are pulled up tight there is a slight gap all round, cant remember if there was one when I started thats the trouble! Maybe it was full of muck/paint so less obvious. This picture shows what I took off, Couldnt see where the outer part of the bollard was threaded, maybe wasnt looking hard enough! These caps have AEC cast into them if it makes any difference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Batchelor Posted April 4, 2011 Author Share Posted April 4, 2011 Didnt spot your diagram Mike, yes it looks pretty self explanatory there, guess I wasnt pulling hard enough but I was afraid of damaging my hubs! I take it they are not LH thread? It would make diff changing a whole lot easier !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antarmike Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 (edited) The driving dog flange pulls tight when the gasket is trapped. There is a protruding register on the outside of this sealing face which locates over the end of the hub, but the register is shorter than the length of hub that is turned back to provide the spigot this register fits over, so there will be a visible gap between the hub and the driving dog flange. See illustration above. From memory this gap will be 1mm to 2.5mm or there abouts. Gap obviously depends on gasket material which when stripped is normally paper gasket about 0.004" thick., thicker gasket paper obviously increases the visible gap. Edited April 4, 2011 by antarmike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Batchelor Posted April 4, 2011 Author Share Posted April 4, 2011 Looking at your diagram it all makes a bit more sense now, the outer part also retains the wheel bearing which itself sits slightly proud in the hub. Looking at my old gasket, this was the only place it was making contact. The rest of the gasket was not compressed. The bearing can be seen in your diagram slightly proud. How tight are the end caps Mike, and are they just normal rh thread? Usefull to know when I revert back to the 6.25 diffs at some point! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antarmike Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Right hand threads both sides. I built a short spanner about a foot long, and used it as a slogging spanner with a 14Lbs sledge hammer. Illustration of tool Z46 scales to a handle length of about 350mm from centre of Octagon. There are no instructions as to how to tighten the cap, so I might be overdoing it, but equally nothing broke when I did it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Batchelor Posted April 5, 2011 Author Share Posted April 5, 2011 Thanks for all the input Mike, now I know my small gap is nothing to worry about, and my prized new tool is not actually that marvellous and I need to make a new one which should in theory knock a good hour off the changeover time!! And there was me thinking only Jags and Bentleys had knock off hub caps!! Cheers Ed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Masseyboy89 Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 Edward, was that a Draper socket? tell me it isn't true! J.G. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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