Originally Posted by lars

Here's the sequence for a complete front end rebuild, including the steps for the spring removal and installation. Note the installation steps regarding the drain hole in the a-arm. This sequence was taken from one of our CCC tech sessions. There are photos available of this process if you want them:

NOTE: This article is available as a complete tech How-To article in MS Word format. If you want a clean properly-formatted version of this atrticle, drop me an e-mail request to:
V8FastCars@msn.com

In the disassembly and rebuild of this front end, here are the steps and sequences we used for an easy job:

Tools needed:

Beer
Jack Daniels
Floor jack
Jack Stands
Air Compressor
½” Drive Impact
Air Hammer (Air Chisel) with radiused chisel tip, straight chisel tip and pickle fork attachment
Pickle Fork
Spring Compressor (not required for small block cars)
Big Hammer
Complete socket sets in 3/8” and ½” drive
½” and 3/8” drive ratchets with extensions
A Cheap Taiwanese ¾” drive socket set
Complete combination wrench set from 5/16” thru 15/16”
Screwdrivers
Pliers
Pin punch set
Torque Wrench
Heavy Duty Vice mounted to a solid workbench
3/8-drive air ratchet with a set of deep sockets is a big benefit
Masking Tape
Felt Marker
Box Knife
220-grit sandpaper or emery cloth
Assembly Lube
Band-Aids

Raise the front of the car off the floor and secure it with jack stands under the frame, allowing the front suspension to be un-supported. Make sure your floor jack has enough height travel to reach the bottom surface of the lower a-arms with the car in this raised position. Also, make sure the car is high enough to allow the lower a-arms to swing all the way down to the near-vertical position. Remove the front wheels.

Disconnect the flexible brake lines from the wheel cylinders or at the frame brackets. Cap the line with a bolt or plastic cap to prevent brake fluid from dripping from the line.

Remove the front shocks.

Remove the front stabilizer bar and all the bar attach hardware.

Remove the cotter pins on the nuts securing the upper ball joints, lower ball joints, and outer tie rod ends. These are often rusted in place, and can be a challenge to remove. Use the Band-Aids as required.

Loosen the ball joint nuts and the tie rod end nuts so that the nuts are backed off to produce about 1/8” clearance from the bottom surface of the nut to the seating surface, but do not remove the nuts completely.

Using the air hammer with a pickle fork insert, pop the tie rod ends loose. Once they pop loose and slam against the loosened nuts (the loose nuts will retain the parts so they donÂ’t go flying through the air when they pop loose), remove the nuts, remove the tie rod ends from the spindle, and tie the tie rod end assembly up out of the way with some string or wire.

Insert the air hammer pickle fork into the upper ball joints and pound away until spring pressure pops the ball joint away from the spindle and up against the loosened nut. Do this on both sides.

If youÂ’re working on a small block car with stock springs, you do not need to use a spring compressor. You can do this in the sequence we did as follows. Big block cars can also be disassembled in this fashion if care is taken when popping out the springs, but a spring compressor is safer on the BB:

Bring your floor jack up underneath the spring pocket of the lower a-arm and raise the jack and the arm until you see the upper ball joint nut slacken off the spindle. Remove the upper ball joint nut. Slowly, lower the floor jack. The lower arm with the spindle/brakes will drop down and disengage from the upper ball joint, and the spring will go completely slack. Once the arm has dropped all the way down, simply remove the loose spring – there will be no tension on it, and it will pretty much fall out on its own. On big block cars, you may need to install your spring compressor and squeeze the spring before dropping the arm as described.

Once the spring is removed, bring the lower arm and spindle back up and engage the upper ball joint stud to the spindle. Loosely attach the upper ball joint nut to join the assembly. Let it all hang like this, and take the air chisel to the lower ball joint, which is now not loaded by the spring. The air chisel will usually knock the lower ball joint stud out of the spindle once the spring has been removed. If it doesnÂ’t, use your pickle fork and big freaking hammer (BFH) until the joint pops loose. Once loose, remove the upper and lower ball joint nuts, and remove the entire spindle/brake assembly from the car. Repeat the whole process for the other side.

Remove the bolts (3) holding the lower a-arm to the frame. A ½” drive impact gun is good for this job. Remove the lower a-arms.

From the top side of the engine compartment, loosen the 2 nuts holding each of the upper a-arms to the frame. As you loosen these nuts, pull the entire alignment shim pack off each location, tape each pack together, and label them as “left front, left rear, right front, and right rear.” Once the shims have been removed, taped, and labeled, remove the nuts.

The driver’s side upper a-arm can easily be removed by wiggling it off the studs and pulling it out. The passenger side does not have adequate space to slip it off the studs, so the pressed studs must be removed. This can be done in several ways: Many of these studs are pressed loosely enough that you can wiggle the a-arm back and forth to make the studs wiggle. By having a helper pry against the studs while they’re wiggled, they will pop out. You can also use a C-Clamp against the protruding threaded end of the stud while placing a large socket over the head of the stud. You have to have just the right sized C-clamp to do this. You can then press the stud out into the socket covering the head. Finally, if the studs do not want to come out, you can put a socket onto the stud head and give it a few zaps back and forth with your ½” drive impact. This will loosen the knurled shank of the stud in the frame, and the stud can be wiggled out. If you do this, be careful about how much you hit the stud with the impact gun – you just have to BARELY give it a few whacks in each direction to get it loose. If you really pound in it you will completely turn the stud in the frame hole, and you will round off and destroy all the knurling. You will then need to buy new studs (available from any auto parts store). With the studs removed, the a-arm will come out from the wheel-well side of the car once you figure out just how to twist it to get it out of the wheel well opening (it really does come out).

Mark the upper a-arms with something to show which one is left and which one is right – the arms are similar, but different, and it can be confusing which is which once they’re mixed up. The lower arms are obvious, since they have the stabilizer bar attach point on the leading edge.

This completes disassembly of the front suspension. If you are replacing tie rod ends and idler arm, this is the time to finish unbolting these components and using the air hammer as earlier described.

If your car has original ball joints, the upper joints are attached with rivets. These rivets are pretty soft, so simply clamp the a-arm in your vice and use a flat chisel insert in your air hammer to cut the heads off the rivets. Once the heads are cut off, you can use a pin punch and a hammer to knock the rivets out of the arms.

If your car has aftermarket ball joints, they will all be attached with nuts and bolts. Remove all the hardware and remove all the ball joints.

Now for the a-arm bushings. No press is necessary – just your handy air hammer and a ¾” drive socket set. Remove the shaft bolts and washers from the a-arm assemblies. The uppers are smaller than the lowers, so you can’t mix them up.

Clamp one of the arms firmly in your vice so you have access to one of the bushings. Notice that on the inside of the bushing (the end away from where the bolt and big washer retains the bushing to the shaft) the rubber will be bulging and squeezing out. Using a box knife, cut the rubber away from the bushing in this area. This will expose a small portion of the inner bushing sleeve where it slides over the shaft. The toughest part of getting the bushings off is due to these inner sleeves being seized and rusted to the shaft. Using your air chisel, place the chisel tip onto the inner bushing sleeve at an angle at this location and give it a few zaps. Hitting directly on this inner sleeve in this way will make the inner sleeve start to move off the shaft. Once it starts moving, use your radiused chisel tip at the other end of the bushing, forcing the chisel in between the outer large lip of the bushing and the a-arm. By walking the chisel around this outer lip and beating it away from the a-arm, the bushing will “walk” right out of the a-arm and off the shaft. You may have to alternate beatings between the inner bushing on the inside, and the outer lip on the outside.

Repeat this with all the bushings. Once you get this technique down, you can easily pop all 8 of the bushings out of the arms within 15 minutes.

With the bushings out of the arms, use a little sandpaper or emery cloth to smooth out, de-rust, and de-burr the bushing bores. Use a file if needed to remove any bigger burrs. Clean up the arms and paint them.

Sand and de-burr the a-arm shafts as well. Remove any rust and nicks on the shaft ends where the bushing will be installed. Clean them up and paint them.

You can now install your new ball joints. If the lube fittings are 90-degree fittings, install these so that the fittings point backwards. This will prevent road dirt from getting into them. Torque the ball joint attach hardware to the spec provided by the manufacturer.

The upper a-arm shafts should be able to slip all the way through the bare upper a-arm bushing holes. Verify this before proceeding. Coat the upper a-arm bushing holes with assembly lube. Lube the a-arm shafts where the bushing sleeves will be installed. If you have polyurethane bushings, remove the bushing inner sleeves and lubricate them with the lube provided by the manufacturer. Using a ¾” drive socket that is bigger than the bushing, clamp the socket in your vice, and place the a-arm over the socket. Insert the new bushing into the arm, and simply tap it into the arm by using a ¾” drive socket of the right size on the large diameter bushing flange. The bushing will tap right into the arm without distorting the arm as long as you keep it going straight.

Insert the a-arm shaft through the remaining empty hole and engage the shaft into the new bushing. Install the second bushing into the opposite end of the a-arm so it engages the shaft. Place the a-arm in your vice so that the vice provides backing for the arm, and tap the second bushing into position using a socket on the outer lip of the bushing.

This same process is used for all of the bushings – the bushings can be hammered into place using a ¾” drive socket and a 5-pound hammer. Note that on the lower a-arms you need to install the shaft along with the first bushing since the shaft will not go into the arm once one of the bushings has been installed.

Install the shaft end bolts and washers loosely – do not tighten.

Install the upper a-arms into the car. If you removed the arm attach studs, install the studs and seat them by tapping them into the frame with a hammer and a rod. Install the shim packs back into their original locations, install the nuts, and tighten it all up.

Install the lower a-arms using the hardware removed earlier.

Notice that the lower a-arms have a hole drilled in the lower spring pocket. This hole serves as a water drain hole. It also serves as an alignment hole for the spring. You want to install the springs so that the end coil of the spring comes right up against this hole, but does not cover the hole. With this in mind, install the spring and make sure it is correctly situated in the upper spring pocket. Use a flashlight so look at the pocket configuration, and make sure the spring is going in right. Stuff the spring up there, and use your floor jack to raise the lower a-arm up underneath the spring. If youÂ’re working on a big block, you will need to have a spring compressor on the spring. Small block cars can be assembled by hand. Simply raise the lower arm under the spring and use the weight of the car to compress the spring. Verify spring rotation to the drain hole. With the floor jack supporting the arm and compressing the spring, slip the spindle/brake assembly onto the lower ball joint stud and install the nut. Swing the spindle into position and engage the upper ball joint to the spindle. Install the nut. Lower the floor jack and remove it. Tighten and torque the ball joint nuts and install the cotter keys. Swing the tie rod end into position and engage it with the spindle. Torque and install the cotter key. Attach the brake hose.

Repeat this for the other side.

Slip the shocks back in and bolt them up. Install the stabilizer bar. Bleed the brakes. Lube the new ball joints and get the car over to the alignment shop.

Piece of cake. We had a group of people working on SteveÂ’s Â’64, but we also rebuilt all 4 of the drum brakes, rebuilt the master cylinder, cleaned and painted all the parts, and did a bunch of screwing around. It took us 6 hours to do everything, most of which was consumed by little tinkering jobs. The major teardown ad re-assembly goes very quickly and is simple work.

Hope everyone has a great time rebuilding their front ends! DonÂ’t forget to consume lots of beer.



[Modified by lars, 9:56 AM 4/1/2004]

Originally Posted by 1nicecorvette

you may now need a new lower ball joint after using the pickle fork on it.

Originally Posted by jayfire

I am in the process of pulling out my coilsprings on my 79 vette. I have done this to my camaro and firebird, but it has been a while. I have the tire off, now, I remember removing the shock and sway bar bolt. Then loosening the castle nut on top of the lower ball joint, BUT on the vette, the cotter pin and castle nut are on the bottom and the zerk fitting is on the top. Are they in the right way? Do I just loosen the bottom castle nut and hammer the a-arm down or do I loosen the top zerk nut and do it that way? Thanks