Front suspension

As you probably are all aware, the lubrication system on the V12 was supposed to be automatic, and all the various oiling points being fed from brake or clutch pedal movement, great idea, but!
The left hand king pin was great, the right hand however was another story. Not only was there heavy wear on the pin itself, the thrust bearing over the top of the pin was also pretty useless, neither of which are available parts... mmm here we go then!

Having repared a fair amount of brass work for a local chrome plater, I remembered a conversation I had with one of the guys who worked there about recovering metal parts using hard chrome plate... This evetually led me to a guy near Birmingham who could build up the diameter with chrome, and the grind back to size, so off went the king pins in the post. The thrust bearing took some tracking down, and whilst trying to get hold of a pair (one for the left hand side) only one similar bearing was available. I say similar because the depth of the replacement was deeper, this was not so bad as the extra depth could be taken up by adjusting the spacers within the top trunnion.

The hubs were sourced from Birmingham too, the wheel bearings locally to me in Bristol, as were the seals for the hubs and for the wishbone pivots, though they are now full lip seals.

Removing the screws from wishbone pivot bearings was nigh impossible, they were solid and had to be drilled out in the end.

The front susension components were all refinished, and any part that needed re plating added to the ever growing tray of parts!
















Just a few of the relevant parts hanging out to dry, as with virtually every part on the car, these were washed, bead blasted and examined, before either replacing or refinishing. When dry they were then packed away in a sealed bin with notes attached if parts were being sourced, or where they were, for example in the zinc bin awaiting plating.

















One of the "zinc bins" just back from being electroplated in "zinc and clear", rather than colour passivate, which gives the zinc a yellow finish and not the "Correct" zinc colour!
All these parts were then sorted and placed with other refinished parts into the relevent bin. Alfred the owner of the Lagonda was rather good at putting all the fastenings into order of size, and challenging me by picking up a part and asking me where it came from! I find it difficult to remember names of people, but give me a part of a car I have worked on and I am the mustard!

Plenty of trolling around various suppliers of fasteners local to me has meant that I have most of the BSF and Whitworth fastners here, so if you cannot find much on your searches, sorry!