Pics of my suspension project

[john70t]

Earlier this year, I installed The Sway-A-Way adjustable spring plates and ElephantRacing Polybronze bushings. Here are some pics of the proceedure and my mistakes:

1. The 36y.o. rubber bushings were rubbing metal-on metal and ready to be replaced (compare the two red arrows).
My biggest mistake was not replacing the bananna arm bushing first, which may cause future alignment problems of the suspension travel path. Big oops.
The spot I'm pointing to is a previous, definitly non-OEM fix. The wheelwell pocket had collection of dirt and leaves and had rusted through. I sprayed a whole lot of rust fix in there, and smoothed it over with expando-foam, fiberglass, and POR-15'd the entire underside, trunk, and interior.


2. I first took some basic measurements of the spindle height-to-ground and the springarm angle (hoping the new ride height would be close but it still required reinstalling). I put a jack under the rear of the swingarm, unbolted, and lowered it. The cover required heating with propane torch in order to be removed.
The t-bars were rust-welded to the springarm, and even this didn't work:


3. The solution:


4. Here's where the modifications started happening, and the short-story became an epic series.
The new SAW's have a much higher tower than the OEM, so the outer t-bar splines aren't fully engaged to the swingarm, and the connection loses more than 1/2 inch of spline.


5. I found an inch-long crack at the base of one of the covers. Also, there was a huge gap(red arrow) where dirt would find it's way into the bushing grease.(note: the bushing hasn't been glued in place yet).


cont........

[john70t]

6. The outer diameter of the new SAW's also needed to be ground off in order to get full suspension travel without hitting anything(red arrow on second pic). Say bye-bye to nice cad plating.



7. An o-ring and a washer welded to the top of the cover should help keep dirt out of the bushings(red arrow points to crack):


8. And added some braces to help strengthen the bushing cover (go slow with this to prevent warping):


9. The poly surfaces were camfered, degreased, and roughed up with 36grit sandpaper. I also ground some shallow slots which will fill with glue to get a better "bite".
Mix up some 2-part epoxy glue and press it in.


10. A little zinc-phosphate metal prep from POR-15, a little red caliper paint for bling-bling and Voila!:


cont...

[john70t]

Uh oh, the dreaded "while you're in there" syndrome.

11. The torque tube had a lot of rust that needed to be slowed down. I don't have anywhere near the metal-working skills/patience/time of milt or DarrellD (bowing), so I decided to Waxoyl the hollow innerds of the quarter panel, rockers and torque tube.



12. My homemade Waxoyl ingredients were a pound of wax dissolved in two quarts of turpentine and a pint of mineral oil. I added some rust converter to the mix just for the heck of it.
The spray tip was custom, since I couldn't find anything that would work. It is a bolt almost center-drilled out, and then three small spray-holes were drilled out so there would be 180deg coverage. The spray holes size/pattern were narrowed by hitting next to them with a sharp punch to close/flatten the hole. Water was used for the testing.
The flexable tube allowed snaking it in through the rocker access grommets.


13. This has to be done in a warm environment!!! Since it was cold, the wax still didn't dissolve after a couple days and had to carefully warmed up, you don't want this spilling across the garage floor.
My mistake was not getting it very warm and pre-heating the spray container(duh), so it began to congeal even before spraying.


14. Mask off every surface around, this stuff makes a glorious mess!



15. I tried to use high spraying pressure, go slowly, and rotate the tube. Not as good an application as I wanted, but it will do for now.


Now back to putting the stuff together.
cont...

[john70t]

A few more difficulties to the install lay ahead:

16. The inner bushings were prep'd similar to the outer, tested to be very snug inside the brass shims, and epoxyed in place. The swingarm (without the t-bar) was installed and bolted at the back to ensure that the inner bushing inserted-depth was set to its plane.
The cover (without spacers)was then installed and the bolts hand-snugged with equal torque.
The short arm of the springplate was worked up and down to align that inner bushing, and the wheel hub was jacked up and down as well, and then set at a little above the aproximate ride-height.

This seemed to work for making it inline with the cover bushings and perpendicular to the swingarm movement.

17. The correct cover-to-body spacing also has to be set carefully--so that the outer bushings don't bind(and twist the bushings loose), or have any slop(and self destruct).
With the bolts hand-snug, the clearance was measured and copied.



18. Uh-oh, there's a gap between the two arms! Half the weight of the rear is going to be bouncing around loose on each of those adjustment bolts.


I welded in a through-bolt/nut set to lock these together, and ground out a curve for it's full line of travel through the short arm.


19. (forgot to add this) Throughout the process, any binding of the bushings were adjusted by marking on the steel side and seeing where it tranfered to.


Greased with the Swepco moly, it's tight and "just like butter".
Now all I have to do is rebuild the Webers again with another of those POS(!!!) "Performance Products" kits that has almost burned up my car twice and may have nuked the oil cooler.

[Jays72T]

WOW, awsome work John. Well done.

[jaydubya]

Originally posted by john70t
18. Uh-oh, there's a gap between the two arms! Half the weight of the rear is going to be bouncing around loose on each of those adjustment bolts.

Looks familiar - see this thread

[john70t]

Thanks Jay, it took a lot more time than expected, but I'm looking forward to the cold weather (air density)

The t-bar spline issue could be solved by cutting and shortening the tower with a 220v proffesional welding unit that can penetrate, but another quick-fix could be:
1)welding a bolt on the end of the t-bar so it sticks out
2)a corrosponding nut welded to an outer plate.
3)the outer plate is bolted (a ring on the perimeter) to an inner plate that is welded to the outside of the tower.
The t-bar can then be locked into a position rather than being able to slide back and forth, and still be removed.

I hope SAW reads this, and adjusts their great design.
A better installation guide from both would have made the process more dummy(me) friendly, and a few more brass shims.