Cpt.Fred

I turned a new steel brush into junk yesterday... Amazing how stubborn this mix of road grime and old grease can be. Soaked the parts for some days... Very nice condition preserved under the crust: Now for the lower control arms... i got one of them apart, the other is still resisting. i simply cannot believe it. but hey, time is working for me, i'm not in any hurry since i don't have all the parts anyway. started to get the bearings out of the hubs. like AndyD told me it shouldn't be a problem to get Timken or SKF replacements from some hardware dealer around here, but what about the seals...? And what about the seals in the backing plates? Are those available separately?

fstfish66, AndyD here is sending me a nice pair of NOS excentric bushings and some other very useful stuff over from australia, and i have to talk to some candian gentlemen as well, but thanks for the info on RARE. I'll definately look them up when i need more parts here. As you said, no more repops for me, when i can avoid it I'm put in a repop water pump and it started leaking 5000miles later, there's no grease nipples and the fabrication is gruesome.. the situation for harley davidson parts is even worse. some parts just plain don't fit, but cost a h*** lot of money. ...rant, rant.

here are some pics of the differences between the knuckle support bushings. upper outer excentric bushing: with the introduction of the x-shaped upper control arm in '41 the bushing was changed. lower outer knuckle support bushing: this looks like it could fit the 1940 lower a-arms... i found out that that most of the time i can minimize the play by re-using the old bolts and pivot bars. the repop bolts have shitty threads and everything is rattling around. this will be a nice little puzzle...

very cool! thanks for sharing!

Me neither. In this case, however, it seems i had to, impact gun had no effect in the first round. Anyway, it worked in the end and i'm happy. Ballistol is on my bench, too, but normally i just use it for leather treatment and such, it's quite expensive around here.

I'm going to clean everything very thoroughly and then protect it with owatrol, the same stuff i use for the car's original sun burnt paint (and pretty much everthing else...). it's a product based on linseed oil, dries like a clear coat and will preserve the original worn look of the parts. new parts and fresh color look out of place on a car like this, in my opinion... every time i service the bushings with fresh grease i can can control the metal parts and put fresh owatrol on if necessary.

Found some time and pressed the old bushings out of the stub axles.

well... since i'm working on old rusty stuff (20yrs, more or less) i have been using caramba, several no-name products i just call MOS2, or WD40. actually i think they all worked quite well. i have found that with some things it's a question of belief, when i ask several people they tell me to use this and don't use that, and then i read a test report in some trade journal and it shows they're more or less all the same. if i go ask at a shop they'll tell me their product works best, so... anyway, i'm always happy to find new things that work better for a certain task, so i just mixed caramba, acetone and atf and put it some crusty junk i got lying in the corner. later on i'll give it a try! Robert, you're right of course, i know now, but when i first saw that thread it seemd strange to me. Like i said, my post here was a bit too hasty...

hmmm.... i might have some old ATF in the back of one of those cabinets here... acetone as well...(what is Kroil?) i'll have a try on the lower control arm bushings! Most of the other stuff i have never heard of. I guess they don't sell it here. Most of the time i use MOS2, Caramba or WD40.

such as? seriously, i always want to know about stuff that works better than the stuff i use!

Useless or not, i couldn't wait. Thanks to the power of the mighty impact wrench (and WD40) i finally got the bushings out of there. Followed by a nice chat with Andy from down under! Thanks man, you saved my day...!

Dodgeb4ya, of course you're right... the thread on the old part is so deformed it looks more like grooves now... sorry for the stupid question. I soaked them in WD40 over night and later i'll try again with the impact wrench. Andy, just got you're message! i think i understood most of it, though i got to admit australian accent isn't excactly what they told us in school english would sound like... together with my german accent, that i undoubtetly have, i'm sure, this will be a funny conversation! let me figure out the time zones first... 1952b3b23: they're Moog CC850. Ford Aerostar 4.0L V6 1986-1997. deathbound: thanks, man, i sure hope so... everytime i think something will be a walk in the walk in the park... and so on by the way, it seems someone rated the thread 1 out of 5 stars... is it that useless?

Alright, i started disassembling the upper control arms and hit the next problem. This is getting quite fascinating. Next question is: As you can see in plate 1, bushing #6 is held in place by the bolt #5 and screwed on the pivor bar #4. Bushing #2 seems to be held in its place in control arm #17 only by its ribbed outer shell. I cannot take pivot bar #4 out of the control arm without removing bushing #2. Anyone ever done this? Do i need a press, or hit the bar to drive the bushing out? Unfortunately my manuals don't say anything about this.

Andy, i'll pm you later! Thanks for the offer! Here are the complete front axle parts lists for the 1940 P9 and P10 models, so everyone interested can compare parts numbers and differences to earlier or later models.

Like always, guys, you are the best...! Robert, i'll pm you later on for numbers and dealers names. Andy, i don't really know yet. The upper excentric bushing and lower outer pivot pin are definately missing. My a-arms are fine, just need pivat bars and bushings, while i'm at it. All of these parts are pivoted in threaded bushings, except the king pins themselves. The threads on the spare parts i have here have quite some clearance, i can move the bushings back and forth on the thread without twisting them. (My english leaves me, i hope you understand what i mean...). I'll clean the old parts and check how clearance is on them. I really don't want to put crappy repops on the front end, so if i don't trust what i have i'll try to order NOS parts, i guess... I'll let you know! Thank you so far...

Robert, that would be very helpful i guess. I do have the correct parts list for my car and should be able to find all the right numbers. I must admit i'm pretty upset right now. Double checked my old bills from back then to verify i ordered the correct parts, and i found i ordered the "front end rebuild kit deluxe" for a 1940 P10... and, of course, paid for it all. I just compared more parts and found, that the tie rod ends included in the kit don't fit, either. They look different and are of rather poor quality. Plus the promised outer pin kits AND stabilizer link kits are also missing in the box. Which practically means that i threw 450USD right out of the window... not to mention this is quite a setback in the rebuild.

Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, until you can see the parts in all their beauty. Parts, nicely machined like these, something you don't get to see anymore on modern cars...! I have to check my rebuild kit again, i think they might have sent me the wrong one, maybe a P15 kit? Edit: I found this pic of the P15 suspension in Dons great photobucket collection, and it seems like i got excatly the wrong parts here. So here are some parts missing in the kit like the lower outer pivot pins, and the upper steering knuckle support pins and bushings... Dang... I hope the other parts like the king pins and the a-arm bars are the same on both models. Afterwards i put new rubber on my current daily driver, a 1938 Wanderer bicycle. It has to get some love, too, otherwise it might get jealous

I took the uprights to the bench vise, checked the new pins from the kit and compared them to the old ones in place. It appeared like at least one of them was driven in the wrong way... no good. I put a box nut under the opening to support the piece, got a friend with big gloves to hold everything in place and then, after a series of sharp blows, i finally got the pins out. Wheew... Look at them, not a pretty sight: Anyway, i was pleased. Put it in an upright position and then removed the upper grease cap with a chisel. With an old socket wrench extension i hit the king pin straight on the head, right here: It went straight down and out, taking the lower dust seal with it. Now there is the answer to my question about the ball bearings, i guess now i know what you meant, Andy...

okay, BTT! I took off the lower a-arms, followed by the upper ones, uprights still attached. Then i began the quest for the lock pins... hidden under the enormous crust of grease and road grime. Best thing there is against rust, though! It looked like they had already taken some abuse in the past... Seperated the upper a-arms from the uprights. Modern arts!

it shouldn't be a problem. this is 6.00x16" on OEM wheels with about 3 inches of drop in the front, 5" in the back. only issue was the bump stops, like i said, but with fresh coil springs it works fine

got the bolts out. happy camper. tired and veeerrrrry dirrrrty. more tomorrow. thank you good night.

hey pete, go look at the "new ways to lower the rear end" thread i started some time ago. there is lots of info on lowering there with pictures. if you should decide to cut coils, don't start with a full round. that might be too much and afterwards you don't have a choice anymore. been there, done that. i'm running Ford Aerostar springs in the front and they are said to lower the ride height about 1" to maybe 1 1/2". Still pretty high, but they're fresh and new, much better ride than the old sagged originals. Robert and Andy, thanks for the "no heat" tip, makes sense to me! I'll have a try at puhing the pins out in the bench vise later today. Ed, thanks, i'll have a closer look to the pins once more. Waht i can say is that one is sticking out pretty far while the other one isn't... more pics later!

Hey Andy, excactly, i mean those pins locking the king pins in place, so "lock pins" it is. I can''t post pics right now but i already did what you wrote, i have drawings of the whole mess in the handbooks as well. I scraped the grease off and checked the pins and it looks like they've been driven in from the rear, but they don't move at all. i pounded them for a while (and i'm not the first one doing that, judging from the look of the whole area around them...) but they chose to resist. So i took everything apart and next move will be putting them in the bench vise and heat-treat them with the torch... i have to get the road grime off first or the whole place will be up in smoke About the bearings, i thought only the 7-passenger-chassis had the upper part of the king pin supported in needle bearings. I have 4 bushings here for the king pin, and the bearings are ball bearings i think... let's see, maybe Kanter made a mistake. Most important thing will be to get all the parts and seals for the hub bearings. I have to dig through Bernbaum's and Kanter and some other places. Still some mysteries to be investigated here. More pics tomorrow! Frank: you're right, though i suspect a little of the grease might already have found it's way to the brake shoes. The brake dust was fealing a little greasy, i think... and my brakes never worked too good anyway. That's why i want to convert them this year. About the lowering, i have to take a good look at the geometrics of the whole thing, i don't want the front too low. taildragging is the thing i like best and suits the body style best, i think... last time i shortend my springs i was always bottoming out on the lower bump stops, and that was very unpleasant! But let's see... Have a nice weekend, everyone!

rumble: i will, once i get the grease off my hands (i'm wrecking my keybaord right now).. Marty: we had to build an electronic solution for the whole thing, the vibrators were shot. Now i have a "line-in" plug and i can listen to my fancy modern MP3 country from the 40s... I'm happy with it! BTW... how do i get those ************************ (choose up to 3 swear words of outrageous character) line pins out of the king pins?

nice job you did there! nothing you get to see everyday... glad you're keeping the l-head!