An update
 

Here is the latest email which I have received on the subject (with certain names replaced with xxxxx to conform to forum rules but please feel free to PM me if you would like to know names.)
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Hi Martin,

We will send out today new rotors & new rear pads, along with the spare wheel, toolkit and the missing suspension adjustment spanners. We feel the rear calipers should not be replaced by us, as the damage to the rotors & the collapse of the bearings was due to the outer drive shaft nuts being left loose by the person who worked on the car before we got it. The hand brake cable was also routed this way before we received the car. Was this the same person who attached the piston rings to the side of the engine & also put the heads back on the engine the wrong way round?

We did advise that as engine builders, we did not want to get involved with any other work on this vehicle. Once the engine was rebuilt we reluctantly drove the car to xxxxxx for the suspension work to be carried out, and it was in a dangerous condition then. It was too low to get on our recovery truck and was really low when driving on the road. Negotiating speed humps was a real problem.

The car was wandering on the road and making a rubbing/grinding noise of which you were advised. We drove it very slowly and with great care as we were worried it would not make it to xxxxxxx.

We do not touch the outer drive shaft end. We disconnect the drive shafts from the gearbox to drop the engine.

If we had had the car fully inspected and all remedial work carried out, we feel it could still be with us now. It has obviously been neglected in the past.

We only had the bearings changed because it was too dangerous to drive as it was and we knew you wanted to drive it back to Holland.

We also feel that we offered much assistance by getting the vehicle to xxxxx for the suspension fitting and from Brooklands to the body shop for painting. We arrived at the body shop at closing time in the evening and had noticed a rubbing noise still persisting after the bearing was changed. We then recollected the car from the body shop and returned it to xxxxxx to investigate the noise which was the hand brake linings problem.

We finally collected it again from xxxxxx after this work was carried out and returned it to the body shop yet again.

This involved two drivers each time and took many hours and was nothing to with our business of engine building.

Hope this helps to explain our position, as we feel we cannot be held responsible for the rear caliper problem and have replaced the pads and rotors as a goodwill gesture.

Kind regards,


Warren xxxxx (Director)

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So, the failed rear bearings, which I was told about AFTER they had driven the car to xxxx were caused as a direct result of the outer drive shaft nuts being loose, which I was only informed of about 3 weeks ago.

The handbrake collapse has now turned into a handbrake linings problem.... It's going to be a very long battle.

Root cause - Loose outer drive shaft nuts, combined with some berk driving the car many miles with them loose. :matchup:

The rear left wheel bearing has just been replaced again (This time, by my own specialist in Holland) The rear left was grinding when I picked up the car from the UK, so it is safe to assume that the "Specialist" in the UK didn't manage to torque the wheel bearing correctly when they installed the new one on this side....

Considering the damage to the original wheel bearings was done when the "Engine Specialists" decided to drive it over to the other "Specialists" because they had decided that it was too low to get onto a transporter (Even though I had the car transported to them from Holland on a transporter) and not realising that the drive shafts were not torqued so that the rotors and wheels did their best to leave the car on the drive over to the "Specialists" (The calipers were the only thing that stopped this.) ... I think it safe to assume that they may have damaged the thread during this action and hence, when the "Specialist" torqued the nut, it stuch with some play still left and hence this new bearing is also FUBAR.

Because this has now entered the "Small Claims Court" phase, I will be creating a section on one of my web servers, which will contain as much information and history as possible. I am still waiting for the car to come back from my people here in Holland, so that I can translate and post the contents of their report into the rotor/bearing/caliper/handbrake cable fiasco and will post a link here, to my page.

Naming and shaming will be done on my website, for legal reasons. ;-)