As part of the refurb I had the uprights powdercoated, unfortunately they have coated the inner area where the bearing slips into. I offered up the bearings and they are stopping about 5mm before fully home. Do I need to wet and dry the powder coat back off or will they pull in on the bolts? I am concerned that if I use the bolts there will be an inherent force outwards from the bearing housing onto the upright due to it being too tight?
When I stripped them they were very tight and I had to tap the bolts to get them out of the uprights but I put that down to the corrosion. Should they just slip in or do they need to be drawn in on the bolts?
On new uprights they just slip all the way home.
If you have powder coated the mating surface then i my opinion that needs to be cleaned up.
Sadly powder coating has its uses but i personally don’t think uprights are one of them, Sorry
Yeah they’re pretty flush even with a bare mating surface, too late now but I had my Elise ones powdercoated and they masked off the inside surface and mating surface on the front:
No idea how easy/hard powdercoat is to sand down really - flappy wheel on a drill maybe might get you started but if your powdercoater is as inexpensive as mine it might be quicker and easier to just get them redone with some masking.
Both surfaces .must be clean from any paint, if you put them together then as the paint comes off your hub potentially comes slack.
powder coating the uprights is fine as long as you take time with the prep. You need to make sure that the toe link recess be it taper or parallel insert, the mating face and the ball joint tapers are masked prior to powder coating or cleaning back to bare metal if they have been. The mating face for the hub carrier & steering carriers need to be clean also.
Cleaned up that inner face with flap wheel and bit of elbow effort with wet n dry, new bearings dropped in, Should have noticed when I picked them up…lesson learned. Also noticed they hadn’t plugged one of the steering arm ball joint recesses. Shame really as the standard of finish on all parts (inc wishbones) was good. Picking up the Lotus soluble speed sensor brackets tomorrow, god knows how much they will cost.
