New Primary Gear Shims and Tracking Brackets

New this week, we've just designed a new replacement primary gear thrust washer set, the phosphor bronze rings that sit behind the primary gear on the crankshaft nose to set the end float.

Precision machined to our usual high standards from PB1, these are available in four different sizes to cover the most common requirements. We've decided to make these in three-thou increments from 0.115" through to 0.124".

From experience, this will give plenty of scope for adjustment of the primary gear end float. Remember that even if you have the MED Roller Bearing Drop Gears, you will still need to set the primary gear float. It's just the idler gear that no longer needs to be shimmed.

Coming soon, we are also working on a new steel C-clip and backing ring to complete the primary gear end float setup, so keep an eye out for that. This will be machined in the UK to an equally high standard, a huge improvement over budget replacements that can cause headaches during a rebuild.

The thrust washers can be view here in our shop - MED Primary Gear Thrust Washers.

Mini adjustable rear camber brackets

Also new to the website, we now stock high quality rear camber brackets from KAD, allowing precise adjustment of the rear wheel camber angles. This is crucial for any Mini when trying to perfect the cornering grip. 

Most cars left the factory with a small degree of positive camber on the rear wheels, which can be detrimental to cornering ability, especially when pushed a bit harder. You'll find that the outer tyre will effectively roll over the rim and the contact patch is reduced during hard cornering.

By adding a touch of negative camber (we typically suggest 0.5-degrees negative as a starting point), the outside rear tyre will have a more even contact patch with the road surface during cornering, to improve grip. 

For optimum handling, camber angles should be set equal from left to right, and with the standard brackets this can prove impossible, as they're fixed in position. Add replacement subframes and refurbished (or bent!) radius arms into the equation, and you'll struggle even more.

These rear tracking brackets are seriously heavy duty, with 0.5-degree camber adjustments made possible by the outer serrated fixing plates. We prefer to have the tracking adjusted by shims, as there is no chance of the geometry adjusting when touching curbs on the race circuit, or big pot holes in the road!

We are working on new sets of tracking shims, laser cut from stainless steel, and these will be out very soon.

The brackets can be view here in our shop - Mini rear camber brackets.