Good evening,

My intake fiasco of last weekend ended with getting the car started, getting ready to take a test drive, then the parking brake locking up and finding part of the adjustment bolt on the ground.



Hell of a test drive, a whole 5 feet.

Luckily the car would reverse just fine, so I brought it back to where it sat before, and left it there. I bought the stainless rebuild kit and tore into it this weekend.



Certainly looks much better than before.

All went smoothly, marked the rotor and drilled the rivets out. The drivers side was pretty good, minus the lower spring being all twisted off and sitting on the inside of the shoes. The passenger side was a different story. This was the side that felt bound up when I tried to drive the car. When I removed the rotor everything fell off! The upper spring and one of the retainers was gone, the other side of the adjustment bolt was torn to shreds. and the lower spring looked just as good as the other side.



Luckily the rest of the underside of the car doesn’t look anywhere near as bad as this. I have no idea how the adjustment bolt managed to get itself stuck in such a way to shred itself like it did, but it managed to rip the shoe retaining pin straight out of the dust shield.



This is not ideal obviously, because I’m able to put the head of the new pin right through the hole. This would prevent it from holding the shoe, giving my car a very hard time keeping itself in place.

The solution here is to replace the dust shield, but that’s impossible to do without removing the rear spindle, opening up an entire other can of worms. My car is 48 years old, and based on what I’ve seen in the rear the bearings are most likely turning on their original grease. It’s time for a rebuild.

Looking at Vansteels website they appear to have both original wheel bearing rebuilds, and exchange units. Although their exchange units are usually cheaper than their rebuild services it seems strange that their exchange units are 200 dollars more per side. The only difference I’m able to find is that the exchange units have new parking brake hardware, which I already have.

So my questions are where should I go from here? Exchange or rebuild? Everything seems to be pointing towards rebuild, but any tips for actually removing the bearing assemblies would be appreciated. My other question is, since I would hate to have to do the same work twice, is this the perfect excuse to pull the trigger on rear coilovers?

 

Are the trailing arms original and how much mileage on them?
Could need front TA bushings too.
Pull the trailing arms off and send them to GTR.
With no way to just change the backing plate, fix them once and be done with it.

Pete.

 

I’ll have to check the car tomorrow, but I’m almost certain they’re original with 73,000 miles. If I’m going through all the trouble of removing them I’ll probably just replace them…offset ones sure sound nice.

 

Can't see any real reason for offset trailing arms. Unless your arms are badly rusted and you feel the need to put extra wide tires on it just because someone, somewhere said that it's cool.
However, if it where mine..... scratch that.
In your case your looking to have them done for you.
I think now is the time to pull the complete trailing arm assembly's and have them rebuilt. Gary, GTR1999 Is an excellent suggestion, as well as Bairs Corvettes or as mentioned above, Vansteel
best of luck with your project!

 

Have you considered peening that flared hole back to flat and possibly using a thin washer/shim to give the pin a uniform hole and more surface to bear against? It's not like that pin has much force on it once everything is installed, so it certainly doesn't need to be bullet-proof.

 

Peen it, flatten, weld/braze, washer it, and redrill. I'd do that first if overall it feels ok. Should be relatively easy to give that a shot.

 

I think the short term solution is obvious. You can replace the backing plate when you have a reason to rebuild the trailing arm(s).

 

With a welder, perhaps the OP can do something from the front. But access to at least one of the pins is blocked by the hub.

To get back on the road, perhaps you don't need a parking brake. When you get your hubs redone, have @GTR1999, or Bair's, or whoever, replace the parking brake backing plate and hardware.

 

A lot depends on your plans for the car. If you want to get it on the road and delay rebuilding the arms you might get by. I only say that because those parts look aged, if the arms have never been rebuilt the grease is suspect on the bearings. I have taken apart low mileage original TA and there was no grease left on the bearings. The gimmick bearings grease tools or drilling into the support to install a zerk are a waste of time and money.

So, if yours at some point were rebuilt, possibly the grease is not an issue, no way to know unless you take them apart and then you're committed to replacing the bearings.

As for who to use, I know who I would use but if I mention the name it is solicitation. Regardless, you should do your homework well. There are a LOT of people selling rebuilt arms and bearing assemblies. Some just buy from some of the vendors at a discount and resell them. That's fine unless there's a problem and then you may get a run around. You can buy from a rebuilder, those of us who are honest will give you a fair price and the work will be correct. There are those who will do them at home, that isn't a problem, heck I did it for years. A large factory, small shop, or home garage doesn't matter. The quality of the work comes down to one thing- the person doing the work. Fast and Cheap many want, and that is exactly what they get. Some exchange arms may not be as well put together as you expect. Some may be perfect.

Questions you need to ask anyone, and if you don't get any answers, you in fact did get an answer and it's not good.

• What brand of bearings used?
• What brand of grease used?
• Do you match the axles to the rotors?
• What is the range to be expected for rotor runout?
• What is the bearing endplay set to?
• What is lateral play and how do you address it?
• Are all the parts replaced?
• Are the arms checked for rot and to see if they are within the spec, so they're not bent?
• What type of bushings are used and why?
• Are the axles checked for slip fit, what is the spec of the shaft?
• Can axles be bent and if so, how do you know they're bent?
• Do GM axles have runout in the flange?
• If new axles are required, what brand are they and where are they made?

I know the answers to all these questions, and it would take me less time to answer them directly than it does typing them. Don't be afraid to speak with someone, emails or messaging not the way to do this, old fashion human discussion is. I could also put up a list of those I would not use, and it would probably be longer than this one, but that is on you to do your due diligence.

Those who attend my seminars get all those answers and more, but I stopped going to Carlisle and have no plans to go back anymore. I may still hold some in CT for those interested but for the OP poster I hope this info helps you.

Here is what they should look like before the axle is installed.

 

The Carlisle Attendance has certainly dropped from the early 1990's. It appears that COVID might have killed it. I was very disappointed to see them drop Sunday and start on Thursday.

Gary, it is a real shame that you are giving up going to Carlisle. For you it is a business decision and I respect your wish. I have learned so much about our Corvettes by going to the various seminars at Corvettes@Carlisle and saved a bunch of money as well. For my family it was a yearly event and I met my cousin and we stayed Wed. night thru Sunday and spent thousands. Being four in my immediate family we just took the C3 and C4 and off we went.

Thank you very much for taking the time and explaining things to us here on this Forum! I always read your posts and have learned lots and for this I am thankful.

Right after buying our 1st Corvette we drove our 1968 to Carlisle and it rained that Friday night of 1991 (Hurricane Andrew) and returning to the hotel it was pouring down rain and there was water sitting on the PA Turnpike. As I approached 50-60 mph my car started crabbing to the left in the rear. When I slowed down it would straighten out. It scared me to death. I went home and pulled both Trailing arm assemblies and had Van Steel their "Million Mile Warranty". I am sorry I did not know you at that point because you are a lot closer. I tend to like to suggest to newbies that they get their trailing arms checked out.

Thank YOU GARY! You are a celebrated Resource here on this Forum. We are all lucky to have your kind of experience!

 

Thank you for the kind words. I am happy to hear that some of the info I post has helped you.

As for Carlisle, I do miss holding the seminars there. The last few years I was there I requested the last seminar of the day so that I wasn't rushed to get it done in an hour. I would spend literally hours discussing the things I do, how I do them, and why they are the best. Those who attended were shown actual parts, where they failed, and the correct methods used to increase the life of them. Then I held a question-and-answer period to address individual owners' questions. The topics covered custom built work like differentials, boxes, and arms. When you can see a plain, common assembly next to a custom built one it really shows the differences. I started up the seminars in CT until covid hit and stopped. I am considering starting up again.

I stopped after 2016 for several reasons.
1-The hotel beds are not what I can sleep on anymore, standing in the hot sun and humidity from 6am -6pm then getting 4 hours sleep at best, just didn't make sense anymore.
2- Attendance- clearly changed over the years after the PA tax man showed up inspecting every vendor space there. I had to get a transient vendor PA tax number and file PA sales tax. For me, I didn't have many parts to sell, so it wasn't a big deal but those that drove in every year a week early with a trailer full of new parts got hit hard. They stopped bringing parts, just catalogs with free shipping coupons. The vendor spaces went from sold out to plenty of open spaces. By noon on Saturday the vendors were packing up. The last Sunday I went it was a ghost town. Going on Wednesday wasn't much better. It came to Friday and Saturday morning. If it rained it was worse. Where I was in the flatlands, I would see a wave of walkers come by about 8:00 am, by 9:00 am the lane was dead. The second wave came in about noon and by 1-2:00pm it was over. Add in the old timers who retired or died, leaving gaps that were not filled in knowledge or attendance.
3- cost, the majority of the motels on rt11 were run down or certainly not super comfortable. I recall the door on the last room I stayed had huge gaps on the door fit.
The prices doubled for the show. For me it is about a 5-6 hour drive. I liked some of the restaurants there but year after year it seemed more places were gone.
So for me it just got to the point where it wasn't feasible any longer. Covid, the economy, the tax man, the internet, and an aging interest group all play part in the changes. I certainly hope it continues and the hobby moves forward but it has changed for sure.

Unlike a 65-year-old car that can be rebuilt like new, a 65-year-old human cannot.

 

You can slip a new pin in from the back after removing all the nuts and bolt at 12 o'clock holding the backing plate on. Like others said, I would just try to flatten out that hole and use a new pin. Just rebuilt them on my 78 and replaced both pins.