Living with a Porsche 944

Spring has sprung and so has some more refurb work on TheHoff. I'd noticed on a few jaunts after the MOT in April that the left rear wheel was rather hot after a drive, even around town so I figured it was time to sort the rear brakes and give them some of the treatment the fronts had got a couple of winters ago... After 30 years the original ATE callipers were looking a little mangy and in desperate need of attention so I whipped them off and relocated them to the work bench...   ...where a few knocks with a hammer separated the caliper into three parts:   I also noticed that each of the piston seals were hole - which made me wonder how they'd been able to actually work properly!    With the seals removed I discovered much manginess lurking beneath...    I can assure you that you do not want your piston looking like this!    First step was to clean them up and remove all the loose rust etc - I used a drill and...

    In trying to locate the source of a little knock I noticed that the NS drive shaft was 'freer' than the OS. I had suspected the Spax damper not fitting snugly enough in the top mounting point so those will be swapped around too.     The driveshaft has a cv joint each end, and having read that low grease may mean they knock, I pulled the left shaft and set about cleaning the joints and repacking them. I bought a pair of CV joint grease tubs from Amazon and tackled them - if the bearings come out its a real work of patience to get them seated in the race again... It's a bit fiddly getting all six 12 point bolts off each CB joint - marking the joint and stub exile end helps enormously when lining up for reassembly. Now to road test on Drive it Day. Incidentally I saved another 4kgs fitting a new Bosch battery compared to the old brick. That brings the lightweight project to a total of 70kgs saved so far.

That's a ticket to drive with abandon dear Sirs. To celebrate I've booked a spot on the Retro Cars Brands Hatch track evening. The funny thing is after getting the MOT and taking TheHoff on a celebratory B-road blast - I retired to the garage and promptly started taking the rear end apart to trace an annoying rattle...