Westfield Kit Car Build Diary

	Sponsored by:

The Build Diary

Front Hubs -

Steering Rack -

Differential -

Drive Shaft -

Rear Brakes -

Fuel System -

Wiring Loom

Module 2 Build:

<31st August 2005>
Front Hubs:

The first job in Module 2 is to fit the ball joints to the front suspension wishbones, and then fit the brake assembly upright onto these.
Fitting the ball joint to the bottom wisbone involves 2 bolts and torque tightening them to 28lbf. The top wishbone involves screwing the ball joint into the end of the wishbone as you can see in the photo.

This is where disaster struck! the one shown in the picture above went in fine, but the left had top ball joint was not so easy. I had run the thread from a smaller bolt round the thread in the wishbone to try and clean any paint or metal from the thread itself. However, when fitting the top ball joint it got got stuck, i was only hand tightening it but it got to a point when it was about halfway in that it wouldn't got any further. So i tried to remove it and it turned about quarter of a turn and got stuck that way as well! After trying everything to get the ball joint off i had to take it to a garage down the road to see if they could remove it. They did but when i got it back the thread on both the ball joint and the wishbone were ruined. I mailed Westfield in the evening explaining what had happened and that i suspected the tread in the wishbone was faulty. They asked me to send the wishbone in for investigation. I've posted it off and await to hear the verdict. Either way it's going to need a new top wishbone and top ball joint! As you can see from the pictures the originals are useless.

I was able to continue and fit the right hand upright though and once that was on it looked fantastic

<1st September 2005>
Received a mail from Gavin at Westfield asking me to post the wishbone back to them for the warranty guys to take a look and decide if the thread was actually at fault for the wishbone problem. So i packaged it up that morning and posted it off in the afternoon.

<2nd September 2005>
Gavin called me mid morning to say that the wishbone had arrived and after an inspection a new thread was put in the wisbone, new bushes had been put in and a new ball joint would be posted to me that day! Thats what i call great service!

<5th September 2005>
Got home from work to see a courier note through my door, luckily they had left it at one of my neighbors so i quickly popped round and picked it up. As you can see from the picture they had delivered what they promised and even fitted the ball joint to the wishbone for me! Really can't fault Westfield at all so far.

<7th September 2005>
I have now fitted the left hand front hubs and connected it to the steering rack.