Unexpected good fortune

The next step was to sort out the rear driveshafts, uprights, hubs, etc, and so with this in mind I took the wheel bearings, hubs and uprights to a local garage to get them pressed in. Shortly after, I got a call from the garage telling me that the hubs didn't fit in the wheel bearings (they were 4mm too big so pressing a bit harder clearly wasn't going to work). After a quick chat with Peter, I realised that the owner of my 328 donor car had obviously blinged it up with some M3 wheels and brakes (hence the M3 markings I'd noticed on the rear brakes, and hence why the seller wanted to sell the wheels off separately). A bit annoying, but I bought some new 328-sized hubs and got those pressed in.

Once I got them home, though, I realised that the driveshafts wouldn't fit in the new hubs, because clearly the M3 driveshafts were bigger than the 328 driveshafts, and apparently that's what I had. I then started inspecting the diff a bit more closely, and it turns out that I had indeed got lucky and received an M3 limited slip diff instead of a regular 328 open diff, which is what the seller thought he was selling. Given that I got a free diff upgrade, I'm not too fussed about having to buy new hubs and driveshafts. To celebrate, I cleaned up the diff and gave it a coat of POR-15:

Clean and shiny diff (compare with previous post)

Note: the way to tell on these diffs is that they have a big (two inch high) S stamped on the top and bottom (normally in white, green on mine), which had almost completely worn away, and the code on the tag attached to a bolt at the back of the diff starts with an S (again, illegible on mine). Alternatively, turn an output and if the other output turns the same way, it's an LSD; opposite way = open diff. Apparently new flanges will be needed to make it mate correctly with the new driveshafts; these are on their way.

I also painted the rear callipers and brackets, as I didn't think I could handle bright gold calliper brackets. The POR-15 didn't take too well as they're in new condition, so there's no rust for it to bind to, but it should look good enough.

Rich hard at work putting the brake disc on backwards

Spent the rest of the weekend, with Rich's help, attaching brakes, steering rack, rear uprights, etc. The front-end suspension is now done, modulo replacing a couple of bolts from the donor, which are in the post. For now I've loosely attached the callipers using the old bolts.

The only question here relates to toe adjustment; I've got the track rod ends on as far as they will go and the wheels seem pretty much dead-on parallel. I don't think I'm going to be able to get significant (any?) toe-in, so it's possible this will need some adjustment, possibly grinding a few mm off the end of the track rod end.