Gatuitous pics rear suspension rebuild

[John Block]

This kept her on jack stands for 2 months.
Bushings (ER polybronze), Brakes (rebuild calipers,
new rotors, pads) And just for the joy of Porshe style
plumbing- new oil lines to the thermostat (got rid of
the leaks too). Lastly, a valve adjustment.

Start with a box of parts:



Start pulling things off (this makes the lower right valve
adjust something you can do from a lounge chair). Clean
and paint while the wife asks "Will anyone actually be able
to see this when you put it back together?"




Put on the new stuff.



I found a use for empty Pelican Parts boxes...
elevators for the jackstands holding the oil lines
until they can be clamped in place.




all done. No oil leaks. No more understeer. Good stopping power.



after an alignment I was finally able to get her on the road. Other than cleaning up many years of road crud inside the wheel wells and scrapping off the black rubberized undercoating all over the brass oil lines and thermostat (thank you previous owner) the installation was about 4 days work. I had a little difficulty getting the rear ride height correct... about 7 tries re-indexing t-bars... Love those Elephant Racing bushings but if I had it to do over I would have purchased Sway Away adjustable spring plates just for that little extra adjustment. The most difficult part of this job was removing the steel lines from the thermostat, I had to cut them off, very scarry, I did not want to ruin the threads. But the dremel prevailed and, after scraping corrosion out of the threads it all went back together without leaks. Now I'll be driving to Hershey without oil leaks or shimmy and shake!

thanks for looking
John

[laddsc]

Sinful how clean those wheel wells are. Nice job.

[DW SD]

Looks very nice! Where did you have the springplates replated?

Did you do the monoball upgrade, too?

[John Block]

DW SD

No, I should have done both but I ran short of money so the springplates are painted and no monoballs (the shocks were new when I purchased the car).

John

[DW SD]

How hard is it to pull the spring plate out, to re-index the torsion bars? Don't the spring plate bushings get stuck? Do you pry them out?

Thanks,

Doug

[John Block]

DW SD

Bushings and T bars came out without a hitch, I guess I was lucky... I had to apply a little pry bar pressure to them but they popped right out. re-indexing the outer splines is easy. The inner splines are a bit touchy feely because they are deep in the tube and you only want to move them 1 notch you have to do it by feel.

John

[Mysterytrain]

Nice work! May I ask a silly question..when indexing does moving the T-bar or spring plate clockwise lower the car?

[efhughes3]

Very nice. I've got a similar project in my future. I've been sitting on a new set of ER bushings since last summer! The thing that really has held me back is that I'm second guessing not getting the Sway-A-way bars, and the appropriate bushings for them. Maybe Chuck will work an exchange with me?

[John Block]

Mysterytrain

That depends which side of the car you are working on clockwise on the right lowers right wheel counterclockwise on the left lowers left wheel. I used an angle finder and recorded the spring plate angle when the spring plate was detached from the trailing arm, then again with the trailing arm attached. I also recorded the angle of slope on the car when I had it on jackstands (measured at the door sills). That way I could drop the car (with wheels and tires on) to the floor, measure the top of wheel well to floor (25" if your lucky). If you have to re-index you can jack it back to the angle you recorded at the door sill and make an adjustment to the T-bar splines on the spring plate side or the T-bar splines on the inside of the T-bar tube (one will move the height more than the other) drop the car back on the tires and see how close to 25" you are. If you're within a half an ich you can use the eccentric 36mm adjustment nut to get your height dialed in. I got it close, drove it around the block to settle everything into place and then set the final height at 25 inches with the adjustment bolt.

I did the front last year it's a lot easier.

John

[imcarthur]

Looks great, John. I have almost finished mine - just doing the final dial-in. Your wheelwells are much cleaner than I got mine. You have shamed me.

Mysterytrain

Move one spline on the inside i.e. clockwise & one spline counterclockwise & you raise/lower by about 1/4 inch.

Ian

[John Block]

Ian

Thanks for explaining the spline adjustment relationship to height, mine wasn't very clear or correct for that matter. To tell the truth I did my adjustments kinda hit and miss at first then got on this board to find out how to do it right.

John

[imcarthur]

John

Same here. I ripped it all apart & painted, rebushed etc & then tried the angle thing. I shot for 29 degrees. Well, I'm maxed up on one springplate up & maxed down on the other. So, I must do it again so I can have some adjustment available for when I 'tripod' it. But I've learned a lot.

Ian

[450knotOffice]

Very nice work, John! Bravo! I like your Cab, btw.

I just finished a similar front and rear rebuild which took me a month. My car was transformed.

[Mysterytrain]

thanks for the info...I realized later in the day that the rotation was side dependant.