75vetteman

just got them (CAs) back from the powder coaters yesterday so took them to reese's tire to press in the new bushings. they didn't install the washers and bolts that go through the bushings into the shafts. my question is what do i torque these bolts to? when i took them out they seemed like they were in pretty tight, but i figured that the "mechanic" would reinstall them for me.
once again let down by those idiotic things they call people... as if the powder coaters weren't dumb enough...

oldgto

interesting information here....

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...fications.html

wombvette

Put the front end all together, and with the weight on the car in the normal position, then tighten the bolts. See the guy wont dumb after all.

75vetteman

ok so the mechanic wasn't dumb. but the guy who powdercoated my spindles was an idiot. he also coated the ends of the shafts that the bushings go onto.
thanks for the help. now i just need to find a correct fan for the car. the PO worked at ford and had installed a ford fan in the car. with the new shroud, it doesn't fit at all

lvmyvt76

Just wondered if you told the powder coater not to coat the ends? Try doing his work sometime, it's hard to tell the powder where to go and not to go, and if the customer doesn't give good directions on what they want, they coat the entire piece and let them sand off what they want clean.

Marlin

I was about to say the same.

If you don't tell them then everything gets coated. You need to sit down with anybody working on your car or its parts to make sure to tell them what you want and don't.

75vetteman

i thought it was common sense not to powdercoat the spindle. they said they had done many suspension pieces before so i assumed they knew what they were doing. the guy knew exactly what that piece was called, and knew that the bearings ride on it etc. have they not heard of masking tape? i apologize for giving people too much credit for brains it's stuff like this that has convinced me that if you want something done right, do it yourself. as a perfectionist, it's hard to lower my standards of quality work.
i was also upset that after they blasted the arms, they went straight to powdercoating. the lower CAs had some slag left from the factory welds all over and now that they're coated, it looks like little bubbles all over! i didn't know about this slag because when i pulled these things out there was an extra pound of gunk on each one.
yeah i'm gonna stick with- somebody there has a screw loose upstairs
well y'all were correct about not tightening those bolts til after the CAs were installed. trying to turn the shafts to line up the bolt holes was much easier when i could turn them by hand. i have the CAs in but it's supposed to rain later today and tomorrow so i'm waiting til i try to install the springs. somebody said it can't be done w/out a spring compressor, but i tried a spring compressor for getting them out and i had no room to install that darn tool. it was too big to fit anywhere. just carefully lowered the lower CA until the tension was gone and they came right out. hoping to install them the same way

Marlin

^

Shops try not to question their customers to much as they want the money, not fighting.

When I was boring/stroking a V6 chevy motor the machine shop just asked if I knew what i was doing. I said yep and they did what I said.

oldgto

Let me know if it works. I took mine out the same way you did, just lowered the CA till the spring came out. But I couldn`t get it back in the way it came out. So we just picked up a spring compressor to get them back in! When I tried to set the spring in, it got seated at the top, but was too much of an angle at the bottom. Tried setting the bottom first, but it was no where near getting into the top.
So we`ll squeeze them to put them in.

wombvette

Good Luck, unless you have HD F41 springs. You can do it the way the factory manual says, by installing the spring and with a special tool, jack up on the inside of the arm with the ball already installed. Ain't easy to align the bolts that way though.