Dave Carter FJ Ace (Part 1)
Some time ago now Dave Carter contacted me with an enquiry regarding modifications to his FJ. Dave liked the look of the Thunderace rear swingarm swap, but also wondered about about an Ace front fork swap too. I think I remember saying, " I reckon they'll fit". Armed with this sure knowledge Dave proceeded to "Bl**dy well make 'em fit ! " The results according to Dave are very good indeed !
Well after admiring the excellent mods people have done to there FJ's I came across a Thunderace that had been smacked right in the middle (ohhh that must have hurt). Anyhow I managed to con, er well acquire what was left for a measly sum and that left me with a good rear and good front end.
I noticed I’ve seen quite a few rear end transplants but not many front ends which upon checking is a relatively easy mod provided you’ve access to a serious press, more of that later.
Thanks though must go to Frank Moore's and Barry’s excellent write-ups on Barry’s FJ Modifications web site as that is more or less what I followed for the rear end transplant.
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First I removed the whole rear end and whilst doing the alterations to reduce the thunderace swing arm width I sent of the wheels for powder coating/ tyres ect, and by the way if anyone wants a quality job for around £80.00 a mate of mine has his own business and does an exceptional job, anyway enough of the sales pitch. The rear sub frame was also removed for access and as a couple of brackets were broken I fitted a newer one that I’d acquired earlier from e-bay, this differed slightly but only in the fact that there was a different fuel pump mounting so a new mount was made and fitted. I also spent what seemed like an eternity polishing the new swing arm and some other bits.
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I reduced the width by 4.00mm either side but as Frank and Barry explain a good quality hacksaw/Dremell will do the job and then file up to give a nice finish. As I put new bearings in I didn’t have to press the existing ones further in as the other articles but I did use the pivot bolt along with some old gear cogs to press them in.
Then the bit that took some time, in my madness I decided to polish the top and outer edges of the swing arm, I’ve done quite a bit of this for others but as long as you’ve time and patience a respectable job can be achieved one you’ve knocked off the rough surface, but it still took what seemed like an eternity compared to the rest of the mod.
I’ve followed Frank’s lead with the size of the dog bones for now and will maybe play around with slightly different sizes in the future. I inserted the FJ sleeve on the shock mount bracket as the ace one is not as long then drilled out some spacer washers to the same size to take up the slack. The brake switch bracket from the FJ fouls the swing arm but with a careful bit of filing to the outer edges this can be remounted in its original position and clears the arm.
Whilst the back end was still open I refitted the shock protector by warming the plastic up and reshaping it so as the new larger rear tyre and the wheel didn’t foul it, seems to work a treat.
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Once I had the wheels back it was time to decide about lining up the chain, the swing arm itself centralizes after the 4.00mm cut mentioned earlier, I went for skimming down the rear sprocket carrier so as to use more readily available sprockets and the fact that although I’m not a (flash b*stard ) we do have a lot of lathes at work. Prior to the lathe work the studs have to be removed, so once the wife was out I heated the carrier to about 200-250 C in the oven then proceeded to remove the sprocket studs using two nuts locked together, the carrier cools down quickly and had to be reheated to remove the last three. A quick spay with Hammerite smooth and it looked like new. The studs were replaced using the two-nut procedure with some lock tight and reassembled back to the wheel along with the brake disk. After more reassembly and tweaking the rear was done complete with new 180 tyres.
I'm delighted you were able to follow my ramblings pretty easily Dave. It seems to me you are indeed a 'Happy Bunny ! ' Well done mate.
