28" lift?

A recent article in Jaguar World showed how to overhaul the rear braking system on the Jaguar IRS and one of the things it said was you need 28" clearance to remove the rear discs. When I started removing the brakes etc and the rear cage was still in situ I was a bit concerned about how I'd achieve this 28" clearance and wasn't sure exactly where it was measured from! Now that the IRS is off the car it doesn't matter as you have as much clearance as you need and I would say that it was child's play to remove the rear disc this way.

there is very little access to the nuts and bolts which hold the UJs to the transmission with the brake discs sandwiched between. the nuts and threads were very rusty so I sandblasted them to make the task as easy as possible. it worked a treat. if the threads on the bolts are ruined you would need to strip the final drive to replace them

another view of a sandblasted nut and thread. takes 5 minutes to do and saves 5 hours of grief

even with the blasting the nuts rounded slightly as they were very tight. they can be replaced easily

this is what you need to hold on the other side when un-doing the nuts. these bolts cannot be removed without disnamtling final drive and the parts book does not list them separately. they must be classed as part of the pinion they sit in

another view of the nut & bolt set up. the bolts are good enough to retain

after the inner fixings are removed you need to remove the rod holding the shock absorbers to the rear arms

1st thing to do is remove nut fromone end then tap rad towards other side so that shock can be swivelled out of the way

which will leave you with this situation where you would expect to be able to do the same on other side but you may have problems doing so as the nyloc nut will tend to grip the thread (especially if the threads are rusty) and the rod will just turn

you can lock the rod at the other free end with 2 nuts and spanners tightened against each other

or pull the whole rod out. note there is only a washer and collar at one end. the rear fixing does not have these

the whole arm can then be swung up leaving the brake disc completely free to be lifted out. If the IRS was in situ you would obviously need plenty height on the car to swing the arm down sufficient to get access. this must be whre the magic 28" comes in

when the arm is swung away be sure tocollect and note the number of shims between the UJ and the brake disc as these are vital for centering the disc within the caliper

I marked the position and order of all mine

when the disc comes off you will find further shims behind it

these were marked also for re-fitting in the correct order etc