I have just finished changing the bearings on my escort diff and have fitted discs. now that I am putting everything to-gather I can notice that the shaft must be bent as when the discs are mounted to the axel face I can notice the disc runs out. Should I just face it off in a lathe so that the mounting face runs true or should I make a new shaft?

Are they new discs? If not, it could be the disc itself? Maybe try swapping them if not new.

Failing that, I'll shut up

the discs are the only part that is new

Right, back in the garage for me then......

whip the half shaft out and rol it l on a flat surface - you will see the ends wobble if it is bent.

Slow down --- some run out will always be noticeable, first thing to do is rotate the disc by 180 degeees.

I'm not overly suprised at all I'm afraid to say.

We had to machine some lugs to be pressed into the end of the halfshaft to locate the wheels we were using. In doing so when turning the recess into the end of the half shaft we found that there was a noticable amount of run-out on the flange relative to the outer bearing surface (which the jaws were located on). This was the case for the 4 shafts we had machined.

Since then I have been informed that someone checked over 100 escort shafts and found 3 that ran 'true'. Oh the joy of old ford parts!

[Edited on 23/11/08 by andylancaster3000]

you dont just get probs with old parts, i bought new ali hubs for my front end .one of the stud holes was drilled .5mm over size so the stud just spun round rather than being a tight fit and the other hub flange was 14 thou out of true which caused a disk run out of 39 thou (1mm).
ideally if you have a dial gauge and stand you can check all your parts very easily

I fitted a new set of disc's to my tin top, and on road test the nearside brake kept jamming on, when i stripped it down to find the problem it turned out to be a warped disc. So may not be the half shaft, check the new disc's for true. Just a thought, Ray