I had a 1.8 VX with an Ital axle & after having three drive shaft breakages, I upgraded to a Quaife ATB & the Rakeway drive shaft & hub conversion & I didn't have any problems after that. It certainly did the trick.
It seems strange to me that Rakeway have stopped producing them. When I was there I got the impression that they were pretty much made to order & I remember the chap saying something along the lines of 'we'll carry on making them until we've converted all the Caterham's'. I think it would certainly be worth giving them a call.
I still have an Ital Haynes manual, which has a useful section on the axle, with an exploded diagram. I could post it to you, if you'd like it?
I am rebuilding a 1984 live axle car and have chosen to go the Quaife ATB route, ordered in Jan, delivered last week in addition I will have the bearings shimmed. I contacted Rakeway in January and was told ' we are doing some soon, and will let you know ', I am still waiting. Quaife is now £860 odd the Rakeway around £1320.
Alan
My Caterham R1 BEC LA has the Quaife ATB unit. It's pretty soft in it's operation and rarely seems to fully lock up, but then again it's not a true LSD. Suits the BEC lower torque very well.
The axle is shimmed and has a disc conversion. I do have to keep an eye on the nuts on the end of the halfshaft as they have a tendency to come loose. The disc conversion was the best thing I've done to the car. Transformed the braking / stopping ability.
They do........ I cant remember the details of what was required but we had one in many moons ago that was a hillclimb LC chassis and we built an alloy nosed English axle for him.
A friend of mine, Dave Willet, builds and rally's cars. Check him out at Dave Willet Motorsport.
He carried out the disc conversion, basically removing the old drums and back plate, welding and bolting on a calliper bracket to the end of the axle casing. He used Seirra rear calipers with a slight mod to the handbrake mechanism, then re-drilled Escort discs to the Ital pcd.
you can buy new end plates that double a bearing retainers to suit the sierra caliper no welding required, depending which half shafts your using you may need to reduce the OD of the flange in oder to fit inside the disc.
I don't think the kit is available from Rakeway now.
I had a 1.8 VX with an Ital axle & after having three drive shaft breakages, I upgraded to a Quaife ATB & the Rakeway drive shaft & hub conversion & I didn't have any problems after that. It certainly did the trick.
It seems strange to me that Rakeway have stopped producing them. When I was there I got the impression that they were pretty much made to order & I remember the chap saying something along the lines of 'we'll carry on making them until we've converted all the Caterham's'. I think it would certainly be worth giving them a call.
I still have an Ital Haynes manual, which has a useful section on the axle, with an exploded diagram. I could post it to you, if you'd like it?
Or you could look at putting an English axle in as parts for those are readily available, needs a little chassis mod too.
My Caterham R1 BEC LA has the Quaife ATB unit. It's pretty soft in it's operation and rarely seems to fully lock up, but then again it's not a true LSD. Suits the BEC lower torque very well.
The axle is shimmed and has a disc conversion. I do have to keep an eye on the nuts on the end of the halfshaft as they have a tendency to come loose. The disc conversion was the best thing I've done to the car. Transformed the braking / stopping ability.
Clive
Tell us more about the discs Clive. and Neil the Ford axle doesn't fit the Long Cockpit chassis.
They do........ I cant remember the details of what was required but we had one in many moons ago that was a hillclimb LC chassis and we built an alloy nosed English axle for him.
A friend of mine, Dave Willet, builds and rally's cars. Check him out at Dave Willet Motorsport.
He carried out the disc conversion, basically removing the old drums and back plate, welding and bolting on a calliper bracket to the end of the axle casing. He used Seirra rear calipers with a slight mod to the handbrake mechanism, then re-drilled Escort discs to the Ital pcd.
I"ll post some pictures.
Clive
you can buy new end plates that double a bearing retainers to suit the sierra caliper no welding required, depending which half shafts your using you may need to reduce the OD of the flange in oder to fit inside the disc.