I managed to put in a few hours in the garage today too, and since the suspension parts are more or less in place on the car I decided to start changing the bearing races in the hubs and pack the hubs with grease. After a short pep-talk with Svein on the phone, he told me that the races are the parts that actually become worn. It was tempting to just leave the races in place and drop the new conical needle bearings right in, but I’m glad I didn’t.
Phew! It’s been a year since the first parts of the rear suspension was taken off the car, and today the rear axle and suspension renovation was finally done. I mean, completely done. The brakes were bled (which took a long time since the entire circuit rear of the proportioning valve was empty) and the wheels were put back on, and then it was time for a quick shakedown in the neighbourhood. The handbrake needs some more adjusting since it doesn’t hold the car even the slightest, but that’s all so far. No strange noises, no leaks and no surprises. The 35 mm drop in ride height looks quite good compared to gas shocks on original springs too.
Once the car was down on its wheels, I tightened the nuts at the front and rear of the trailing arms. Front 110 Nm and rear 120 Nm.
I parked the car the other way around in the garage so it’ll be a little more room to manoeuver with the front suspension. That job is starting right away. The engine is very rough after sitting for so long, so it’s not much fun driving anyway. One small thing I noticed is that the alternator has too little amperage on idle making the alimentazione telltale light up. Might be a slack in the belt, but I’ll look into that later.
Tomorrow it’s time to start on the front suspension!
Surprisingly enough, I’m still hard at work with the rear axle and suspension 
The correct-ish oil seal arrived from Classic Alfa on Wednesday (5. August), and the day after it was mounted in the differential. I say correct-ish because I got the 10 mm seal instead of the 12 mm original, but this is not a real problem. Be aware though, that the 100% correct oil seal is hard to find and that a 48-80-10 seal will work.
The handbrake assembly have been in pieces since mid April, so I figured I’d rebuild it while waiting for the bearings. The short cables from the diff housing to the wheel hubs are the only thing that isn’t new. The first thing I did was to dose the parts in engine wash, clean them with a brush and wash them with water. Once they were squeaky clean it was time to start assembling. The left and right assembly plates differ as to where the hand brake cable opening is, but apart from that they are identical. The small parts are interchangeable. Every moving part and metal-to-metal surface was greased up before I started. There was one pretty big problem though: I bought new shoe retaining springs from Häckner, but they haven’t been filed flat and does not compress enough to let the retaining pin extend all the way through so it can be turned. Since the old springs looked like new I decided to use them and throw the new ones in the parts bin. The assembly took me a couple of hours.
Before leaving, I fabricated a tool to loosen the ring nut on the pinion drive at the front of the differential. It needs to come off so I can get to the oil seal behind it. The original DIASS tool has number A.5.0114. I made it with a cutting disc on an angle grinder, a square metal file and a 32 mm 1/2″ socket. The job took about an hour, including hunting down red hot bits finding its way into my shoes 
