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Old 9th February 2020, 10:55
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Default Always learning new things about my car

A little tale of how I never stop discovering things about my car....

With the fitting the rear lights progressing well my planning thoughts turned to the wings(still some way off but it doesn't hurt to plan ahead). Before fitting the front wings I decided to check that I had tightened all the front suspension to the correct torque as it's easier do this without the bodywork in the way.
The only nuts not tightened were the track rod ends (TRE) but no matter what I tried I couldn't get them to tighten to the correct torque?
I got a feeling of déjÃ* vu when I tried to tighten up the nut as I had a similar problem when I built my Marlin Sportster but in that case it was a Metro ball joint into a BMW hub. But this was odd as it's a Ford Sierra TRE fitted to a Ford hub. In fact, it wouldn't tighten up because the nut had hit the shank of the taper before it was tight.
At first I thought about manufacturing tolerance issues with aftermarket parts but I was using old stock QH parts which in my limited experience were well made and the chance of getting any real Ford TRE's is nigh impossible. So I reverted to Google and stumbled across some Westfield Seven owners discussing TRE's for their cars. I discovered that Westfield used Sierra hubs and a Mk2 Escort rack and track rod ends. Then a thought crossed my mind, could it be my front hubs were manufactured for Westfield? They were new unused hubs when I bought them off ebay some years back but they had the Ford logo obliterated from the casting. So I bought some Escort TRE's to see if they had larger tapered shanks.

Here's a picture of the Sierra TRE showing the top of the tapered shank showing proud.

Sierra TRE by Sabrebuilder, on Flickr

As a reminder, these were the hubs I bought.....(if you look closely at the one on the right you can see the Ford part number but the Ford logo has been removed from the oval)

New front hubs 1 by Sabrebuilder, on Flickr

The Escort TRE's arrived a few days later and I quickly popped one in a hub which confirmed they do indeed have slightly larger taper and they fit correctly. They also have the same thread to the tie rods so no issue there either. Measuring the diameter of the tapered shank is tricky but the Escort taper is about 0.77mm larger than the Sierra one at the based of the taper.

Here's a picture of the Escort Mk2 TRE taper.......

Escort Mk2 TRE by Sabrebuilder, on Flickr

These tightened up without any issues.

Problem solved!

Last edited by peterux; 9th February 2020 at 11:00.. Reason: additional info
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