MORLEY’S WORKSHOP

CHARGER BRAKES, UNDERBONNET FLUFF AND LEXUS DASH GLOOP

Just when I thought I’d seen it all… along comes a weird-burger with the lot. It arrived in the form of a VH Charger that I’d just started to recommission. Now, I’m no stranger to elderly Aussie-car front ends, so even though the Charger is a bit of an odd one with its upper wishbone, lower control arm and a castor-bar (a bit like a cross between a Kingswood’s double wishbones and a Commodore’s strut combined with a VW’s torsion bar – mounted north-south instead of east-west in the Dak Dak) it shouldn’t have presented any mysteries.

Until I tried to fit the new front brake rotors. I grabbed a set of grooved discs I’d bought years earlier, blew the dust off the boxes and unpacked them for a look. Damn! Looks like the buggers have sent me the wrong discs. And after a few years, it’d be a miracle if I could even remember where I got them from, let alone find the docket to swap them. The problem was that the new discs looked to be a slip-on design, while the ones the Charger appeared to be onepiece units with the bearing carrier part of the casting.

But it got me wondering, if these weren’t the right discs, which ones were? The internet – a usually reliable source of info once you’ve negotiated the ads and dross – failed me this time, so I did what I should have done hours ago and walked around to my mate’s workshop that specialises in old Vals.

And here’s how it pans out: The VH valiant disc rotor is, in fact, separate to the bearing carrier. So, to fit new discs, you have to press out the wheel-studs, wheel studs, then press out the bearing carrier (or hub, or whatever you want to call it) press the hub into the new disc and then press the wheel-studs back in. Not being a mechanic by trade and not having too much exposure to these old chariots, this was indeed news to me. I’m certain this is not a Valiantspecific thing, but it was enough to have me standing in the corner scratching my scone. I suppose the point of all this is that you really shouldn’t assume you’ve been sold the wrong bit until you’ve got hold of the big picture.

Another one that got me along these lines was a few years back when the AU Falcon XR6 I was dailying suddenly had a fritz of the brake lights. Since both globes went out together, it was pretty fair to surmise that the switch had gone west, so I ordered a new one online. When it turned up, it was this crazy looking gadget that I would have expected Winston Churchill to use to snip the ends off his stogies. Looking at it sitting on the bench, you’d swear it could never work as a brake-light switch. Not that it didn’t look like it would fit, but rather than it simply looked like no brake-light switch I’d ever seen before. And yes, of course, it fitted and worked. And I’m sure there must be a lot more examples of this sort of thing out there.

PS. This looks like being the last time I write the column for the foreseeable as publishers pull up the drawbridge to wait out the apocalypse. Keep writing in, as we’ll get Mick to hold the fort until I’m back. It’s been fun and, to be honest, a privilege to write this stuff and I hope it’l l be a short break, rather than a long one.