Finally had a garage and a press over winter break, so I got to work on my front end. Hopefully the pictures will prove useful to somebody. Sorry I didn't think to take a picture of the spring-removal process or balljoint seperation.

Here's what I had to start with:

Hard to see, but everything is extremely dirty, particularly the lower A-arm. I don't even think I needed a chain to hold the spring in, there was so much gunk.

To push the calliper between the A-arms (I wasn't disconnecting them), I had to remove the lower bump-stop, I hung them from a convenient hole in the frame. After all brake-items were removed, I loosened both balljoint stud castle nuts. Top 3/4", Bottom 7/8" I wrapped a chain around the spring, as low as possible, and secured it with a bolt. Then, leaving the castle nuts on just enough to be fully threaded, I used a 2-Jaw puller to pull the spindle down off the top balljoint. Jack up beneath the lower arm to relieve some pressure, them you can remove the castlenut and lower the lower-arm and spindle, keeping an eye on the spring, until it is down all the way. At this point, the spring should pop out with only a little "discharge" left.

Leaving you with this:



The lower balljoint can again be seperated with a puller.

Now the A-arms must be unbolted. The lowers are fastened with two 5/8" bolts in front (and a sort of "double-nut" on the other side of the frame-lip) and a much larger 7/8" nut and bolt. My passenger side was rusted securely to the frame, while the driver's side rotated freely once lose. YMMV!

The upper arms are worse, only in that you have to remove the fan shroud, and loosen some engine accessories. Then just 2 11/16" nuts per side. Keep the shims in snack-sized baggies labelled FR,FL,RR,RL.

Now for the really not-fun part. Some recommend getting a shop to press out the old bushings and press in the new ones. Being one that prefers to do things myself, being wary of those some that get their arms back bent, and probably just being plain masochistic, I got them out by hand. A smarter person would have used a holesaw to remove the rubber. I tried blowtorching, with little success, it never seemed to penetrate much rubber (maybe I need MAPP gas) then drilling, with some success (broke 3 drill bits, in more than 3 places) but ended up using a hammer and screwdriver to pry and rip out the old rubber. It was slow and hard, but ultimately effective.

The metal outer sleeves were even harder, I used a combination of drifts and chisels, and eventually pounded them all out. You must remove at least one sleeve from the lower arms to get the shaft out, and partially or totally remove one from the uppers to remove the shaft. Again, I smarter person would have cut the sleeve in half and gone from there. And again, I was not this smarter person.

Now to cleaning and painting. Let me qualify my work by saying, this is only temporary, no primer, no blasting, poor coverage, Rustoleum spraypaint. When I do all of the modifications I plan, and find a final length for my spring, Everything will be blasted and powdercoated.

Spindle Before:


And After:

The hub was masked off.

Frame Before:

Post Cleaning, rusty-looking parts are clean, just discolored,except where I couldn't reach:

And soon after painting:

Granted it's just a small section of the frame, but it's definitely a section you don't want to rust-through!

I don't have any closeups of the dirty A-arms, but here is an upper post-cleaning. They were initially sprayed with Engine-Brite, then blasted at the carwash. Everything else was taken off by scraper, wirebrush, and drill-wire wheel. You can see the crossshaft already painted.


As I learned ( A little too late!) in Norval's recent post, there IS a front and rear to the upper shafts. Make sure to keep them labelled throughout the process. Upper arms are also easy to confuse. I found the best way was to keep driver's and passenger's side parts strictly seperated the whole time.

Here is a group of parts painted and drying in my parents new house, filling the house with fumes.


Once dry, pressing in the bushings is next.

Here is an upper going together.

You can see the two-bolts-and-a-long-nut spacer holding the arm in shape. It is easy to adjust for the different arms, I believe 10.5-12" was the range I used. You can also see the metal plate on top, otherwise the outer sleeve would not press in correctly. I still had some trouble with it going through and trying to compress the shaft, so the wood on the bottom allows it some room to move. Patience and careful use of spacers, etc. helps everything come together safely and correctly.

Next is balljoints, which was relatively easy. 25 ft.lbs. on all the small bolts. Remember where the 90* zerk is going to point when it's back on the car, back and slightly inwards worked for me. You could grease now, while it's out in the open, but I waited until everything was back together, to possibly save mess.

Upper arms go on easily, don't forget those shims. And remember not to put the shroud back on until the car is on the ground and the crossshaft-endbolts have been tightened. They get to be impossible to reach.

Now, there are 2 ways to go. Some have attached both crossshafts to the frame, and jacked it up to connect the spindle. For me this wasn't going to work, as the spring would have to bend to seat in the upper and lower at the same time, and it wasn't about to bend!

Instead I had to use the somewhat hazardous method of attaching both balljoints, then with the spring correctly seated, jack the crossshaft side up to the frame and fiddle around until the bolts would align and could be tightened up. This sucked. I think now that if I had kept trying to jack it up the other way, the spring may have worked itself out, but at the time it was looking impossible. Any comments on this?

One way or another, everything gets it, gets torqued, double checked, and looks something like this:



For a 5-day job and second-rate painting, I think it turned out pretty darn well. The handling feels like a new car, although it really needs an alignment (possibly due to mixed up crossshafts?) Poly, 550lb springs and the 1-1/8" swaybar feel like a very good combination.

Is this anybody else's winter project? If so, ask away, there's probably alot I've left out. Hope I've been useful. And if you're still riding on original parts, skip that new intake manifold and do what I did, your Vette will thank you (and if it doesn't, go ahead and buy it that intake too) :cheers: :cheers:

-Chris

Did I mention I got a digital camera for Christmas? My girlfriend is amazing. Look forward to more of these ;)

 

Wow! Great write up. Thanks for posting the pics and sharing. Don't forget to paint the fender wells.
:cheers: :thumbs: :seeya

 

I'm in the process of doing the same project, along with rebuilding the power steering. It's been a long slow project for many reasons, one being the 2 months it took Corvette Central to send my new parts! :eek:

Everything is cleaned and most of it repainted, now it's time to start going back together. Hopefully this weekend.

This is my first ever project.... I go right for the big stuff! :D

 

Nice pics ... I have done about half of that. Luckily, I still have the control arms
off, so I can check the upper cross shafts.

:thumbs:

 

Can I just spraypaint the fenderwells? Maybe I should wait for when I get a paintjob and get it done right.

I've been slowing working upwards in my projects, although the first were hard too. Rebuilt the calipers, and much more, to make it roadworthy. (Stored 17 years) Recently I've done a cam swap, strutrod bushings, and soon I'll be doing headers, transmission work, trailing arms.... etc. etc.

Thanks for the comments!

 

I know some guys that work in body shops. Whenever I've seen them
'complete' the job by painting the fenderwells, they always used a spray
can of bumper black. I don't think anyone but the perfectionists would
setup a paint gun to do the wells.

 

Ive redone mine about a year and a half ago much better handling I ended up having to get a new lower control arm..at least it was all set to go..in
this is how I painted the everthing



[Modified by Packy76, 1:03 PM 1/23/2004]

 

Hey Packy ... hope you got the truck fixed and the vette away for the winter.

:seeya

 

Excellent! :cheers: