I need to vent, it will help me and bore you. I am doing the trailing arms on my '70 coupe. I just finished another car of the same vintage, doing the same, redo of the trailing arms. This went without any trouble. In short, all parts bead blasted and painted. All items coated with Por-15. Went to install axel after setup with shim setting tool. Placed all componets on axel like inner bearing dust shield etc. Set inner bearing with proper tool. So far so good. Place castle nut on threaded end and get to about 40 pounds of torque and bam! Axel will not turn, locked up tight. It is though there were no shims installed. So I tried the other axel in the same trailing arm, same thing happened. I called my bearing supplier who does this for a living, he is perplexed as I am. The last time I used bearings made in China. This time I used Timken (probably made in China) which was the original supplier of the bearings. I have decided not to touch the car for a few days to try and get my mind right. Man, after that last car I thought I was hot suff, doesn't take much to deflate.

 

Did you have the spacers and shims paralell ground?

 

Sounds like you did it right.
Don't feel bad ... pressed my first rear assembly together with the dust
shield on backwards .... comes back apart with hydraulic press.
Good luck trying again !!

 

I had the spacers and shim in their proper place. I have the best of tools to do the job. Its got to be me.....something I must be overlooking. I drove this car not four weeks ago before tearing it apart. I have reviewed the book and all pictures concerning this job and cannot figure out what is going on. If I wait the answer will come to me. There are times one needs to walk away. The worst case is to send them to a guy to do. I am willing to do that yet.

 

Gary (GTR1999) can probably assist you. He is a CF member and does TA's and Diffs.