There have been several procedures written on this and likely some on the
Tiger United tech tip space. Certainly some in the TEAE published collection
of tips.
I just put mine back in and have done it the same way many times. Assuming
you have the radiator and a lot of other stuff out of the way, and removed
the brake lines that attach to it, you can either lower the front end
resting on a good floor jack with a board across the underside of the cross
member that sits on the jack. I usually leave the wheels / tires on when I
remove so it doesn't have to come down too far. I don't do this for
installation.
With the weight off the bolts with the jack, you just loosen the bolts and
slowly lower the jack until the tires are hitting the ground. You might then
need to lift the car up a little higher to clear the tires to get it out. If
you take them off then the front end can come down lower and avoid that. I
thelps to have someone help guide the front end down since it has a tendency
to hang up on the frame below the engine mounts. I have removed about 6
though and only had help once.
I just put mine back in and again used about a foot square piece of plywood
on a jack to raise the xmember up. I onlyhad the a arms attached but not the
stub axle of spring and such. it went up very easy and by letting it sit
about 1/8" below the frame, you can easily see where the bolts need to go
and can wiggle the front end to line up. Once you get one bolt in the rest
are easy. Took about 10 minutes once I had the jack in place.
I had the rack lightly bolted in place when I put the cross member in. I
then undid those bolts so I could pull the rack away from the cross member
and allow the steering column splined coupling to slide onto the rack shaft.
I suppose you could keep the rack off and just slide it in later but I use
it as hand hold when raising the cross member. Probably more habit then
anything. I did chase the threads for the cross member bolts with a tap
since they tend to fill up with junk over the years and use antisieze on the
bolts.
As was discussed here recently, I also use the jack to install the spring
once the front end is in. Another 5 minute job really if all the stuff is
there.
Curt Hoffman
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