Adjusting the rear axle alignment

TL;DR moving a washer from one side to the other 

It had been a few months that I knew the rear axle was not perfectly aligned, with the right wheel flush with the wing, and the left one a bit more on the inside.

A quick look in the assembly guide confirmed that there are just a pair of bolts attaching the "A frame" to the chassis, with washers on each side to center the axle. Checking my car revealed that the same number of washers was placed either side of said 'A frame'.

When I got the car back from fitting the Quaife differential, it was not improved : the right wheel was now protruding sligthly. It seemed that this was constrained by the alignment of the diff and propeller shaft in the chassis, with little wiggle room.

On top of that, I discovered that when driving alone, I could hear rather hard impacts on the chassis. It didn't take long to see that the axle was "interfering" with the spaceframe (banging hard on it, actually).

To adjust, all I needed was a 19mm wrench as well as a 19mm socket on my ratchet. The car was lifted using the hydraulic jack near the towing hook on the left side of the chassis; the rear wheels were removed.

On each side, 19mm nuts and bolts were easily loosened, removed, re-installed; I did one side of the car at a time. All while making sure the propeller shaft was centered in the chassis. Moving 2 washers was too much, the grinding and banging issue would have moved to the other side. So only one washer was finally moved from the left side to the right.

Two layers of epoxy anti-rust were applied on the chassis and axle bracket where the paint had been grinded by the impacts. The area was cleaned with brake cleaner first.

Specified torque is 81Nm. As my torque wrench was set to 85Nm for the wheel nuts, the "A-frame" was torqued to 85 as well. I did apply a good dose of copper grease on the threads.

The car is now back to it's original setting, with the right tyre flush with the wing. 

As we were worried that the left side would now interfere with the chassis, I did apply white Tipp-Ex correction fluid on the edges of the shock absorber brackets of the axle. Three hours of spirited driving later in the day -and an extra four hours the next day- confirmed that all was fine, the paint hadn't been impacted in any way.

When the car had been left for a week to install the diff', the rear hubs had been cleaned too well, and they became quite rusty in a few weeks. The drums were already seized in place. A rubber mallet gave all the required (but gentle) persuasion. The hubs were cleaned with brake cleaner, then covered with copper grease. The exterior of the drums was cleaned with WD40 on some paper towel.

With the wheel lug and nuts in unsightly dry condition instead of the nice copper grease that had been there since leaving the factory, they were also cleaned and re-greased. One thread in a wheel nut on the left side was sorry looking -again not of my doing-, with metal shavings that had to be removed from the inside with a small telescopic magnet.

As the wheel nuts were dirty and showing some signs of corrosion, they got a 2 hours bath in Coca-Cola. They were rinsed with fresh water and dried in the sunlight before re-installing.

Enjoying the copper grease so much, I did also put some on the castellated nuts and threads on the front hubs. 

There's some serious chance I'll end up replacing the A-frame washers with titanium ones to keep everything looking clean and fresh.