Bromley Westfield Build Blog: I am no expert mechanic but ..............

Today started off positively, the brakes were pressurised with air to 8 psi and hold so fingers crossed they may hold fluid ! I decided to have a last look around before filling the brakes and noticed a problem. The nearside front brake disc was not central in the caliper and was hard up to the nearside pad pressing the pad into the casting. To freely rotate the disc would have meant taking off at least a couple of mm of pad before it would even rotate, I asked my mechanic friend for advice and he felt the tyre on the road may not even rotate the hub. Closer examination showed the nearside hub to be seated at least a few mm further out on the stub axle than the one at the offside which was fine. We removed the hub which had been factory assembled to have a look at the bearings. The nearside rear oil seal was highly distorted and not seated in the hub properly and closer examination showed the rearmost bearing to be crooked in its journal. The hub centre was distressed with what I would describe as hammer marks where holy sxxt had been brayed out of it in an effort to get the oil seal fully home, of course the crooked bearing would not let the oil seal sit properly. The net effect is that the disc is offset outwards to bind on the caliper ! not by very far but by far enough to make the nearside brakes hard on like a handbrake and be a one pad affair ! I have no hesitation in saying whoever assembled the hub would have been aware that the amount of force that the witness marks suggest had been used was not correct ! Hopefully the photos illustrate what I have tried to describe !