Lomax 4-wheeler swing arm removal

[callum]

Hi,
I have a Lomax 224 to do some work on and I'm wondering what the best way of removing the rear swinging arms are? There's bit of play in the bearings on one side and this was picked up at the last MOT. To my mind, there's too much movement there, and I'd like to replace the bearings and shells.

However, being a L***X, I can't just jack it up and undo the nut - the body gets in the way. Obviously, nothing is straightforwards with this car, but the options I see before me are:

1) Cut a hole in the rear body to extract the arm through
2) Lift the entire tub off the chassis (lomax chassis)
3) Slide entire rear axle off back of chassis.

Option 1 is the easiest, but will result in a big hole in the back of the bodywork, which will have to be prettified or disguised as something else.

Option2 is the neatest, but involves a lot of dis-assembly of the car. It's not been apart for years and I don't know what's seized and what isn't. I also have a limited time to get the car completed. It will need the front valance un-rivetted, the exhaust split, gear linkage disconnects and well as all of the tub to chassis fixings undone. I think that the brake pipes have enough flexibility to avoid needing to touch those.

Option3 looks do-able after removing the fuel tank and seat belt braces (which run into the top of the B-posts). I think there might just be enough room to wiggle the entire axle assemble out of the back of the car.

Has anyone had to do a similar job on a 224 and know if option 3 is indeed possible?

Rgrds
Callum (give me a Dyane any day....)

[callum]

In the absence of any answers, I went ahead and pursued option 3.

For future reference, it is possible to remove the complete rear cross-member and both swinging arms without having to chop around with the body, although you have to remove the rear seat-belt triangulation braces as well as the fuel tank.

Both sets of rear arm bearings are fubar and will be replaced.

However, I am quite impressed with the standard of the cars build (built by Lomax for Endemol productions). Everything is well thought out and I've not come across a seized fastener yet. The rear hub nuts came off without nearly enough force and I've rescued all of the rear brake pipes for reuse.

There are lots of little jobs needing done, but none are as much trouble and the rear arms, so it should all be plain sailing from now on.

One thing I did notice, was that the rear tie-rod ends appear to be cut and welded - making them short stubby affairs. Why do this rather than cut and re-thread the tie rods? As both tie-rod ends and knife edges are now shot, it makes it a pain to replace both.

Rgrds
Callum