The rear Toe didn't get completed today as p-p-planned, but most of the wheels are pointing in the correct direction now...


Driver's..........front......






Driver's.........rear........






Passenger's......front.......oooooops... ...






Passenger's rear...........





(I never thought that I would look forward to wearing-out two (fairly new) old school xxtra wide tires in order to install 255s on all four rims)
15050

 

Well.............this sucks very much...................Sorry about the lack of pics!

Photobucket deleted the first 4-5 pages of my build pics......again!

I reposted as many as I could tonight.....I'll have to repost the rest of the pics this week-end
15429


R A T S !!!!

 

Looking good Gunner keep up the good work.

 

Being a rookie I did a Search but could not find dimensions for a stock 1968 trailing arm. Does anyone have a drawing of the stock offset and angles (when looking down at the top view of the arm)?

I forgot to check the arms before rebuilding them. Now I'm having trouble getting enough Toe-OUT (it has 1/4" Toe-In now) on the DRIVER'S side arm. The T/A bushing is against the outboard side of the pocket, and I still need another .125" to be close to Toe-Tolerance.

Let me rephrase the question using a diagram of a stock C3 trailing arm.....................................







What would be the Off-set distance between the machine surface A and the parallel surface B of the arm shown above? Several responses would be appreciated to get an average distance

 

I measured.....it seems like 3" would be to the far side of the trailing arm......even at that---the arm is "arched".




1.92 is more in the ballpark of the spot I'm measuring......that would mean that the arm is bent a good bit..........no wonder this rookie can only adjust the toe within 1/4" of spec./no room in the pocket for outboard shims.



EDIT: Since the pocket allows a "gap" of 3/8" per side on the trailing arm............I "straightened" the arm to approx. 2" "between the front end of the trailing arm and the machined surface.

After assembling everything and installing the wheel, the difference is very noticeable and I will now be able to set the Toe to the correct specs.

More "discoveries": Well.....what happened was....a previous owner installed 15 x 8" rims and 295 rear tires....then he decided to "arch" the trailing arms to keep the E-brake brackets on the trailing arms from rubbing on the monster tires......which threw the Toe inboard 1/4" on each tire! I straightened the trailing arm and removed the e-brake bracket for re-location later...I will re-shim the Toe and reset the Camber on the driver trailing arm tomorrow----then tackle the passenger trailing arm now that I have a clue as to what has been "done".

(I down to 30 minute to completely remove a trailing arm now......LOL)


Thanks very much for getting me out of a rookie-jam.

 

I may have missed it but what are your plans for the back section of the car, just curious
R

 

Why.........I'm glad that you asked.........here is a small hint or two........










At least they left the original bonding strip/"flange" under the deck when they "modified the tailight clip"!

 

Okay the new rear clip will look much better. The license bezel looks real good,, mine is pimple city. On your wish list when does the new clip get installed.
R

 

r......................if the PTSD hadn't been hammering me so much, it would already be installed......but right now I'm about 4 months behind schedule--total.

Working out the trailing arm previous-owner "modification" will add another week to the alignment process....since I have to cut 1 & 1/2 "wraps" off each coil spring to get the correct front fender-lip height/re-shim contol arms----I may as well remove /rebush/clean/paint them and the coil springs which are fairly "crusty"!

I really want to get it mechanically safe and finish the interior (seats)......then put some local miles on it---bad paint and all


EDIT/Moved from Tech Forum:



I know exactly what you are referring to (only because I've been "hugging" that trailing arm assembly for two days)......I'm going to the garage now and check overall width of the bushing.

I did pay close attention to the machined-flat area that the hub bolts to---it was in good shape.
But I will measure the hole-to-flange clearance just to be sure.

Thanks for letting me know what to look for so I won't have to remove the trailing arm a third time....but I am getting faster at it......LOL!

 

I dove back under the car at 8:30 tonight....really too tired, but I wanted to get as close as possible on the rear wheel alignment.

It now has 0 degrees Toe......and 1/8" positive Camber. That's close enough for 10pm tonight.

I'll fine tune it tomorrow and install cotter pins to hold the shims in place.........WHEW!
15830

 

I think 4" of clearance above the front tire is a LITTLE too much........






So the spring, which the end of the upper and lower coils were NOT against the stops, is removed and a full coil is cut off to start with.....






Now we all know that springs look great cleaned and painted......






However....lower control arms do not look great next to painted springs, so........control arm MUST come out for cleaning and painting...............






Ball joints do not look nice with 1/4 pound of grease on them so.......






I may as well touch this up while the A.D.D. is turned on......




Well.......I'm off......to get a Sonic meal deal and a few spraycans of paint.



(Which means a fast trip to the auto store for new bushings)
15905

 

Keep it up Gunner it is all looking good and my next task is to dive into the suspension and replace all the bushings, clean up and paint like you are, etc etc.

 

Thanks for the shortcut.....I've never changed seized/rusted/frozen/rusted control arm bushings so fast in my life!

The 1 1/8" diameter extra-long hole saw idea was great....I removed the bushings/cleaned the control arms/installed new bushings/painted both control arms.........

in the same time it normally takes me to remove TWO bushhings with a propane torch/many chisels/a LARGE hammer/two vices {normally I destroy one in the process}!


Here ya' go......................................




I sprayed them with gloss black/in Loo-z-anna, we get so much rain--they will look satin black in a week!

Thanks again for answering rookie's questions a thousand times and providing great advice........

I just may get this thing done!
16090

 

You could have saved all that work and just bought bigger tires!

(By the way....it's lookin' good )

 

Sweet get those puppies slapped on there and take her for a drive.

 

I ...........uhhhhhhhhh......still have to rebush the passenger-side front wheel.....

then I need to see if the passenger-side trailing arm needs to be "straightened"........

good thing you guys already provided the dimension for the bushing-to-hub flange offset.

None of the above will be a problem.....now that I am an experienced



R O O K I E !!!!!

 

Copied from a TECH Forum thread: Cutting a coil spring to lower front of car

O.K.

I'm a Rookie......bear with me....the front fender lip height was 29" to start with.......4" above the tire!

USE JACKSTANDS/BE CAREFUL/SPRINGS BITE!

I found from forum members that leaving the wheel on the car makes it easier (which doesn't sound right...LOL)........ I jacked the car....jackstand under frame......jacked lower control arm.....removed the shock......removed nut & loosened tierod with pickle fork......lowered control arm....pulled wheel away a feel inches.....loosened end caps on lower control arm shaft to allow control arm to settle to floor....pried spring out of lower arm and removed from chassis...






Here is a pick looking up into the spring pocket....notice to the left/inside edge of the top coil.....is a 3/8" hole I drilled with a 1& 1/4" long bolt inserted into the hole to hold the top of the spring in the pocket when re-installing the spring......this bolt keeps the upper portion of the spring from binding/refusing to stay in the spring pocket depression...






The lower part of the spring is removed with a prybar ( FIRST...remove the rubber bump-stop to keep from damaging it)......Here is a pic of the " upper spring alignment bolt that I installed....






Here's a pic of the 1st and 2nd cut and changes that the cuts made/the measurements aren't exact...the modified coil spring is now approx. 14" long......






Here's a measurement after the spring is re-in stalled and the car is driven to settle the suspension.....





I'll post more pics after I remove the passenger's spring and modify it (I hope all of the above makes some sense, since I did not do a step-by-step explanation--assuming that members have read threads about the topic).

Thanks to Forum members for all the short cuts/thread-how-to's!
16300

 

Modifying the passenger's side suspension:

Here's the front view of the.....................'68/'78..............project. It was nice of Bubba to leave the '68 turn signals tie-wrapped into the rectangular '78 grill openings......






The lower ball joint is separated and the wheel/spindle assembly is moved out of the way........the spring has been removed, cut to length, cleaned, painted and ready to be installed




The control arm bushings were falling apart so I removed them and cleaned up the bushing holes in the control arm......






I'll remove the upper control arm tomorrow and clean/repaint/rebush them.
16390

 

I took your advice and went to Harbor Freight and picked up that blaster you showed me. Also got a piece of better hose. Got a free box of coarse ground walnut shells. This thing is great man, and does save allot of time. Great rookie advice thanks
R

 

I took your advice and went to Harbor Freight and picked up that blaster you showed me. Also got a piece of better hose. Got a free box of coarse ground walnut shells. This thing is great man, and does save allot of time. Great rookie advice thanks.
R