Rebuild or hire out front suspension?

[Glen]

Long threaded rod with two hooks or fingers that spread to go on coils, like a puller for a crank gear. The other end of the rod has a nut with a roller bearing that goes against the 'spoon', for a better name, shaped like the business end of a pickle fork. This spoon has two sets of ridges depending on the width of the spring on the open end. Extension and socket to compress spring, The trick is to align spoon, while compressing, in a manner to slide out after spring is installed and tension removed. I'll post the pt# tomorrow.

 

[QWK GN]

Brad,
Save your self a lot of time and hassles and pick up a set of used upper and lower control arms.I got a set for $50.Clean them up and install the new parts.The steering parts are not hard to install,It's the contol arms that will slow the job down.Soak all the bolts and nuts with PB Blaster a day before you try and remove them.If you need a torch and don't have one get a propane one.You can sell old arms to a friend who wants do his car after he see's how well yours turned out.

For any one who has poly bushings that squeak.I found that It's usually caused by the poly sway bar bushings binding.Lube them up real good.

I hope this helps.
John O

 

[BJM]

A word of caution on used arms. I thought of doing the same thing but my car had only 50000 miles on it when I did mine. Make sure you don't get some arms off a car with 150000 miles on them. Everything fatigues eventually. Also the aftermarket ball joints have a bigger OD on them to guarentee a tight fit. They are a full .020" bigger than stock. A high mileage arm will have had more than a couple joints in and out and the retention force might not be the best.

I did one side at a time. I took probably 4 hours to remove the whole suspension on one side, about 4 hours to replace the bushings, a day or so to clean and paint the arms with POR15, and about 4 hours to replace. The second side went way faster. I used the internal style spring compressor and chained the spring loosely to the car to reduce its flight risk. When tightening a compressor on a new spring on the bench I tightened a bit and dropped the whole thing on the floor to check it. Then tightened it up all the way. Then I dropped it one last time before getting up close to it during the install.

It was well worth the personal satisfaction I must say, most people are pretty impressed with the idea of doing a whole front end job at home.

 

[Brad Bartilson]

Removing Lower Control Arm

My upper control arm bushings failed, forcing me into this job. Dang, couldn't wait the 8 days to get the polygraphites, so installing the stock types. So I'm trying to jack up on the A-arm to allow removal of the lower control arm bolts, but it doesn't seem that the pressure is coming off them. I've tried jacking on the arm next to the shock mount and also closer in to the bolts. I hate to force them out and have the spring take off. All else has been disasessembled. Any ideas?

 

[Glen]

Take the spring out. The bushing have to be knocked out and pressed in. Might as well do the ball joint while you're there.