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Front Suspension Apart


PatS....

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I got at the front suspension today to get it apart for media blasting tomorrow.

Whole unit on the bench with one bolt backed out

WholeUnitB4Dismantling.jpg

Needed the impact to drive the bolts out.

ImpactWrenchOnBushingBolt.jpg

The threads all look pretty good. Everything seemed in decent shape but very gummed up a really stiff. Didn't want to come apart real bad.

OuterLowerThreads.jpg

I have a question on these as I have never done this before. Are these the actual bushings? With the offset, I'm assuming that's how the front is aligned but do these have to come out too?

UpperKnuckleBushingHole.jpg

And here is the stubborn pin that won't budge!!! Tried a few smacks with it in the vice but no go. Off to the machine shop before I wreck something :rolleyes:

LowerPinAndBushingOnKnuckle.jpg

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Pat, if you want or need some new front end parts, king pins, bushings, etc, I know someone in Winnipeg who has a lot of this stuff, and I don't mean Norm Dumontier either, send me a PM if your interested, he has the tie rod ends also to go with this stuff, as well as other steering parts.Fred

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that shows signs of well maintained car..to a degree that is..the excess grease on the lube plus tht little bit that works out in operations gathers dirt and road grime..next lube..the grease gets squirted out past that first layer and gathers more road grime..next thing you know you have a huge collection of underCoatney on your vehicle..most people even now will not go under a car and clean the undercarriage..not worth it in my book...I do clean up after a lube should I go off angle and squirt grease out the side of the fitting head. On th eolder cars with steering stops, this excess always was wiped there to prevent that scrape noise when turning to the stop and going over a bump/uneven road surface.

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Spent an hour at the do-it-yourself sandblaster outfit today and got half a truckload of parts done. Just no better way to get them clean.

Mosly cast and front end parts...small stuff, but I also did a couple of the inner fender peices and two from behind the grille.

Stood back as far as I could, because I'm not sure if the sand will warp them. They are fairly small and it was only about 38f so I think I'm ok. I'll know tomorrow when I get this all back to the garage. No pics, didn't want to expose the camers to that place. That darn sand gets EVERYWHERE!!!!.

I forgot to use the ear protectors they gave me :( OK now but I won't do that again!

At $75 bucks an hour, they actually saved me alot of scrubbing and wire wheeling and scraping and it's a great base for primer and paint. However, they told me the price jumps to $95/hr in March. Got to gather up the rest of the parts and "gitter done".

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Looks like you are off to a good start. When you blasted the front end peices did you have to protect the areas with threads?

I worked years ago blasting sheet steel and the inside of RR tanker cars. I used metal shot. We were preparing steel to be coated with rubber sheets. It would get inside of the boots and even down inside of the socks. The only way I knew it was break time was by the boss turning off the lights. Wish we had a blasting place like yours ,well worth the $75.00/hr. keep up the good work and keep posting the pictures. Eric

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Eric, No, I didnt protect the threads because I plan to chase them when I can find a chase or tap big enough. I did avoid the area as much as possible while still getting the A frames clean. They still look "wet" so I think I'm OK.

This outfit (Consolidated Compressor) has 7 outdoor stations, 3 of which had a semi tanker being done, and me and my little half-ton with half a load. They also have 2 indoor glass bead cabinets for the dainty stuff.

I know what you mean about the sand...it's in places I didn't know I had places!! And my neck is killing me from bending over to see out the helmet window.

Still, it was fun to see 50 some years of rust and grime gone in sixty seconds...or so.

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i went to homedepot and purchased some thick clear plastic and hung it from the ceiling and made four walls i also layed it on the floor and duck taped the seams had a make shift door purchased a cheap sand blaster nozzle and some play sand and went to town but im going to purchase this this new gun soon

https://www.etoolcart.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=8023

post-690-13585345114928_thumb.jpg

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Pat,

That bushing at the upper end of the knuckle support ( with the big hex) is the adjustment for camber (mostly) and caster (a little bit). You should remove the pinch bolt and get the bushing out to clean things up and make sure it will turn freely in the support.

Yes, the outer pivots are "bushings"... but they're NOT soft metal, by any stretch of the imagination.

I bought front-end parts from Roberts, Kanter, and Bernbaum ( I mixed and matched to get the best pricing). My outer pivot pins ( the bolt part) looked like they'd rattled around in a bin over a cross-country trip on back roads: the threads were dinged and flattened in sevral places.

I thought "no problem, a few licks with the file will clean those spots up"

( the bolt would not thread into the bushing freely as-was ). Well, several GOOD files ( Nicholson, not Harbour Freight junk) wouldn't touch the metal that the bolts are made from... left some nice marks in the FILE though...

I had to put a carbide cut-off disc in my Dremel and very carefully dress-down the high-spots until the bolt would thread all the way into the bushing using only fingers.

At any rate, the "bushing" action on the outer pivots is between the bolt and the "bushing", with the help of generous quantities of good chassis lube ( I'm planning on using Sta-Lube's moly-graph graphite grease).

That stubborn pin is the lock-pin for the king-pin, and is a tapered cotter - just an interference-fit... I believe Don Coatney is the one who always remembers which way it comes-out on which side...

Wish we had a DIY blast place around here...

Clean parts are happy parts!

Frank McMullen

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