Hello all,

I am now rebuilding all of my suspension in my frame off job on my '69 coupe. I want to get the A-arms and trailing arms blasted and coated before I start to put everything back on the frame. Here are a few questions I have:

I have front A-arms that still have the rivets holding in the ball joints. I ground off the heads on the ball joint side but can't get the ball joints out. Any advice? Should I just center punch them and drill them out? (I thought I should ask first - drill later )

Anything to watch out for on the lowers? I haven't tried dissasembling them yet.

How do I get the cross bars and bushings apart on the uppers?

Any good links to share on trailing arm dissasembly/rebuilding?

Thanks for any advice

Yes, center punch the rivets and drill them out.

Persactly what I did with mine.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...686&forum_id=3

Pretty good info with pics as well.

ltlevil

That's a great thread - thanks for pointing me to it

Thanks for the drilling advice as well guys

since you already have the heads ground off, if you have an air chisel you can seperate the pieces with it........I guess you don't have one or you would have used it to remove the heads.

you already have the heads ground off so just grab a hammer and persuade the ball joints out. if no success, then grab a bigger hammer and re-try

That's what I thought, but they won't budge - I thought I could punch them out but no luck. I even tried pounding a chisel between the ball joints and the A-Arm. I'm up to my 5 lb hammer. I'm going to sneak out of work this afternoon and work on them some more. I just wondered if I was doing something wrong and wanted to ask before I pounded or drilled any more I'll probably drill them out this afternoon with the drill press.

BFH

Grinding or cutting the rivets off nearly flush to the A-arm should make them easy to pound through. If you use bolts for the new ball joints you will have to enlarge the holes a bit anyway. The lowers should come out easily. In addition to the center nut there are 2 bolts on the sides of the lower A-arm that have to come out. Mine were so covered in grease I didn't know they were there at first.

Rick B.

I had the best luck getting the old ball joints off the control arms with an angle grinder and an air hammer. I ground the rivet/old ball joint down until I was almost all the way through to the control arm, then used an air hammer to pop the rivet out. Just be careful when using the angle grinder - I had the old ball joint mounting flange paper thin that if I would have ground much further, I would have been grinding the control arm.

By the way - I'll restrain from giving advice on removal of the bushings - after getting mine out, it seems that I've spread (bent) the control arms... next I'm going to post a thread in request for some measurements in attempt to bend them back into shape... mayb e I can avoid buying new ones.

-Eddie

Bending the control arms when removing the bushings is no big problem. Just install the new bushings and use your air hammer to push them back into shape. You can see when they look right. The mechanics do this all the time.

When using an air hammer with a chissle bit, it's easier to remove the upper rivits if you start from under the arm. Chissle the bottom rivits off and than use your big hammer and you'll knock the upper joint right out. Obviously you have to go from the outside and than in on the lowers.