Aston Martin Rust Oration

With the rear suspension going on a couple of weeks ago you’d expect reports of the Aston driving around by now. But I didn’t take the Watts linkage into account. The bolt won’t go in with the axle in place.

Turns out the assembly order is rear suspension first (including Watts linkages) then the differential, and then the brackets that hold the differential in. Maybe the answer is to split the differential from the differential rear carrier, fit the mounting brackets, then the carrier, then the differential. We’ll find out as Nigel’s car goes together.

Thanks Jacques for popping over to help with that.

It was good to have Nigel around to help fit the rear suspension and differential - it’s definitely a 2 man job. Our first step was to connect up and bleed the rear brakes (using a long brake pipe as an extension) to make sure there were no leaks under pressure. The brakes aren’t accessible with the axle in the car.

The owners manual considered it perfectly reasonable to remove and replace the rear axle with the suspension in place, so we fitted the suspension first then wiggled the weighty axle into the remaining space. It wasn’t all that easy. The driveshafts foul the de Dion tube with the suspension on full droop, and there was only just enough clearance when the axle stands were moved from the jacking points to the suspension. A nice full (heavy) fuel tank would have helped enormously.

Owners of pre 1980’s cars will be used to sliding spline joints that allow propshaft and driveshafts to alter in length as the rear axle goes up and down. They are terrible things. The steel against steel movement ensures rapid wear, and they don’t work very well under torque (not ideal for a drivetrain part).

It seems the guys at Aston Martin put some thought into this problem. You can see the thinking: ” Why don’t we put 8 rows of roller bearings inside an extremely complicated housing machined and then ground to an exacting tolerance? I mean it’s not as if the rear axle is complicated enough already.”

It’s a wonderful solution. Metal rolls against metal so wear will be minimal, they’ll work under torque, and should last for ever. Must have cost a fortune to manufacture, but the Aston solution is by far the most effective I’ve seen prior to the introduction of plunging CV joints.

I’ve been replacing the rubber boots - they’ll slide over the bearing carrier with the aid of a cone made from an old oil can (much the same approach as you’d use for replacing CV joint boots).

People looking for replacement brake caliper pistons for a V8 might consider Davron who supply stainless steel pistons for slightly less than the price of standard parts from Aston Martin.

Stainless pistons should hopefully last a little longer than the normal chrome plated steel parts which have a tendency to pit after 20 years.

The prices of bits and pieces on these cars adds up. The total cost of new discs, pads, and pistons on all four corners would be about £1,500 (and probably the same again in labour), but then nobody said these cars were cheap.

Having spent forever replacing the sills on the Oscar India I’m not about to have them rust again. These cars have stainless sill covers that trap wet mud against the sill creating the ideal conditions for rot. I’m planning to make some small modifications to stop the mud getting behind the sill covers in the first place and, as this is impossible, let it out again once it’s found it’s way in.

Here’s one of the worst offenders - the sill extends rearwards to form a mounting surface for the rear wing. Mud will be trapped on top of the sill, and some will fall into the stainless sill covers and rot away inside them.

I have two cunning plans. First one is to space the stainless sill covers away from the bottom of the sill by nearly 1/2 inch, and drill lots of holes in the bottom so water can drain.

Second is to screw a sloping cover to the top of the rear sill which will prevent mud from collecting in the first place, and to cover the gap at the rear caused by spacing the sill cover outwards. I make a cardboard template which demonstrates the idea.

Should be the end to the major V8 rust trap once I’ve fabricated the cover from aluminium.

Ask any V8 specialist what sort of work your new (1970’s) V8 is likely to need and the first thing they’ll say is rear brakes. “They all do” And there is a good reason for that - here’s a photo of the rear brake installation:

To replace the rear discs, or remove the brake calipers, the exhaust, rear suspension, differential and differential carrier first need to be removed. That can take the best part of a day. Putting it all back together will be another day, and that’s before any actual work on the brakes themselves.

Even then the caliper bolts aren’t all that accessible (positions arrowed in yellow). Interestingly the calipers are spaced from their mountings by lots of very thin shims which I found quite charming.

The caliper pistons on this car have rusted and will need to be replaced. While the discs are in good condition I’ll price up some new ones. No point going through all this again anytime in the next 20 years.

Work in the garage for 8 hours and spend 4 of those hours looking for tools? That’s where I was. Things weren’t organised so I spent the whole weekend tidying. This is the result:

Half a skip full of rubbish came out of the garage. Things that were saved because they might just come in handy in the future hadn’t come in handy (because they were lost behind other junk) and were thrown away. It’s amazing how quickly it had accumulated.

The red shelves to the right are still packed full of parts left over from previous restorations that really need to go on eBay. They take up space that could be more sensibly used to save other bits and pieces from ending up on the floor.

I’ve decided that the ideal workshop would not have any storage at all. The car would be there with the tools to work on it, but nothing else. I’m not going to put any more shelves up. I’m going to take them down. I’m going to build a shed and put the rubbish in there from now on.

This is what a garage should look like (Nigel and Gary have this one):

I just popped down to the paint shop with a bit of Aston to see if they could mix me up something much the same colour.

Much sucking through teeth and shaking of heads.

They don’t have a list of paint codes, we don’t know the original paint code and we don’t know if it was repainted in exactly the same colour when it was last resprayed.

Some research will be required. I bet the factory keep records of paint codes, and they are some very nice helpful people at Newport Pagnell, so there’s a starting point. Otherwise the paint shop will attempt to make a custom colour that looks the same.

I’m Malcolm, the guy responsible for the Aston Martin Restoration on these pages. I’m hoping to write about the last stages of the restoration - the “just need to do this great list of little things and it’ll be finished” stage.

Progress on the restoration has been slow for a while - it’s not that the car has taken longer than I thought, just I have less time to spend on it than planned. I made the mistake of treating the car as a weekend project. Now I’m going to reorganise my workload a little and treat it as a week day project.

The project has been a good experience. The Aston V8 is a lovely car. I’ve learned a lot (particularly about aluminium welding). Apart from the aluminium, and the sheer extent of rust, there isn’t much on the V8 that couldn’t be done by DIY restorers. That’s why this website went together - to provide a source of information for other restorers.

The website has been good. I’ve started to become a little involved in the Aston scene, and there are now 3 Aston V8s at the farm. More on the other ones later…