Do yourself a favor and use AN bolts not Grade 8. They are about the same
cost and allot better especially for suspension bolts.
Doug Mallory
"Wright, Larry" wrote:
> "underneath", installment #3
>
> This weekend the front suspension is out; the Garage Queen is
> supported only by a forest of 7 (seven) jackstands. Larry Paulick was by
> again for the process of removing the front crossmember. Actually, this
> was a semi-painless process, as the crossmember had been out before, the
> bolts weren't seized, and we used jackstands and multiple hydraulic
> jacks to _slowly_ bring the assembly down. BTW, it was done with the
> radiator in place but it probably could've gone faster had it been
> removed. I just didn't want to slice up my fingertips on the stainless
> steel flex fan's razor-sharp edges. Oh, yes: the four bolts that hold
> the crossmember in place don't quite come to the tops of the threaded
> openings in the frame, leaving a shallow "pocket" for filling daily with
> WD40 for a week beforehand to ease removal of the bolts.
> Once on the garage floor, disassembly began. I started with the
> shocks, I my case Spax that I put in a few years back. They are
> double-nutted at the top, and the nuts are thin enough to defy the
> wrenches in most automotive toolkits. My solution was to break out my
> old Eldi "Pedalschussel"; bicycle pedals usually require a thin 9/16" or
> 15mm wrench so pedal wrenches are usually double ended in those sizes.
> Your local bike shop probably has a homeowner-grade wrench cheaper than
> the Edli that'll do the job.
> Larry P. mentioned the two-hammer approach to popping loose
> balljoints and tie rod ends, where the retaining nut is loosened and
> both sides of the spindle (stub-axle carrier) or steering arm are struck
> simultaneously with two hammers. Eh, seems too much like my job at the
> office, but what-the-hey. Worked easily enough on the tie-rod ends, so I
> tried it on the upper BJ's once I bought a length of threaded rod to
> hold the spring compressed (1/2" size, BTW) while I did it. The problem
> I ran into was that my upper BJ's were the type with a Nylock nut, not a
> castellated nut with a Cotter pin, so once the BJ popped loose it just
> spun when I tried backing the nut off. Fortunately I could just get a
> pair of waterpump pliers ("Channel Locks") on the shaft _above_ the
> spindle and hold it.
> So far, I've found no evidence of trauma to the main "bits"; no
> cracks in the A-arms or the crossmember, and the shock towers look lined
> up OK. This will have to be borne out with more scrutiny later.
> I won't be re-using the lower fulcrum pin and bushings, as I am
> getting a set of Dale's, but the upper bushings I wanted to re-use. The
> entire set of bushings were Delrin from Tiger Auto Service. Fortunately
> they came out easily, after scraping any loose paint from where the
> bushings met the A-arm, they came out by locking the fulcrum pin in a
> vise and tapping lightly on the A-arm parallel with the fulcrum pin. All
> but one, that is; one lower bushing stuck a mite and took more force. It
> seems the original lubrication was about gone, and there's no way to
> introduce more. I'm wondering about drilling the A-arm's "sleeve" for a
> grease fitting but am curious about getting the inner surface of the
> "sleeve" right afterwards. Would dressing with a jeweler's file,
> followed by a brake cylinder hone, do OK? Or would machine work be
> required?
> One thing that's really stuck is the lower balljoints; there's a
> lot of build up paint and crud on the nut, and my breaker bar and I
> aren't up to the task. Well, everything's going in a few days to the
> strip joint (no, not that one) to have the paint/crud/rust removed, and
> I'll just send the spindles with the BJ's attached; in my experience,
> once they're back the bolts will come loose easily. Speaking of
> stripping, dy'a think there's any problem with the "bearing area" of the
> spindle, the machined surfaces, being exposed to the chemicals?
> Everything else, especially the small parts, get strung together with
> coathanger wire to avoid anything becoming lost in the tank.
> To retain use of the Delrin bushings, I swapped in the A-arms
> and spindles from my old SV Alpine soon after I acquired the Garage
> Queen. One thing I don't think was on the equivalent Tiger parts
> (they're around here somewhere) was a pointed bulge on the bottommost
> part of the spindle, directly above the BJ, that struck two tabs on the
> lower A-arms at full lock as a limiting device. I don't recall this
> feature on the Tiger A-arms or spindle; would there be any problem with
> leaving this in place? Knowing the Tiger's Ackermann woes at full lock
> suggests that I really don't want to be able to turn sharper; plus I
> figure the Alpine arms and spindles must've led an easier life, eh?
> All of the bolts, I hope to replace; most are Grade 8 from a
> local speed shop I put in 12-13 years ago in my Alpine and transferred
> to the Tiger. I'll just go get more. One I expect to have trouble
> locating is the nut (there are 4) for the bolt holding the upper fulcrum
> pins to the crossmember. This little devil has a wrench size (13/16")
> all out of proportion to its thread size. Anyone know who might have
> these?
> Spell-checker whimsy: the suggested replacement to "balljoint"
> is "balloonist"!
>
> Lawrence R. Wright
> Purchasing Analyst
> Andrews Office Products Div. of USOP
> lrw@aop.com
> Ph. 301.386.7923 Fx. 301.386.5333
|