Time to replace 30 year old suspension - little help please?

[frankc]

Well, I reached my first goal of removing the struts from the car.

So, here's where I started: [part 1]



The first step was to disconnect the hard brake line at the strut (at least this was necessary for the Koni strut) and then remove the front caliper. I then turned the strut to give access to the tie rod and removed the cotter pin and castle nut from the top of the tie rod.




btw, I used the trick of holding down the brake pedal to prevent the brake fluid from leaking all over the place when working on the brake lines. I used one of the rubber caps from the caliper bleaders (after cleaning it) to cap off the hard line attached to the caliper, and a 10-1mm bolt to keep dirt out of the flex line.

I didn't want to hammer on the steering arm to remove the tie rod end and I didn't want to spend $50 for a special tool that I'd use once, so I cut off the boot and used a 3-arm puller - it worked great! I was surprised how much force it took to pop this thing out of there, though. Letting PB Blaster soak overnight and using a little heat helps.




Next was the hub/rotor. I used the muffler clamp technique to pry the dust cap off (I'm thankful I found that post)




and then removed the spindle nut:




At this point, the hub slides off (with the bearings) very easily, leaving you with this:



Continued to part 2 due to number of images...

[frankc]

Now it was time to remove the strut. So to assist in removing the shock tower nut at the camber plate, I decided to get a little extra use out of the tie rod tool I purchased. It works great to hold the large washer while turning the nut:




I compressed the top of the shock down and tilted it out of the wheel well:





Next was to remove the ball joint wedge pin at the base of the strut. After letting the pin soak in PBB overnight, I rotated the strut 180 degrees for better access, backed off the nut to the end of the pin and hammered it until it started to move. Then, to avoid hitting the strut with the hammer, I used a punch to drive it out.




While working on the wedge pin, I noticed that the ball joint boot had a nice hole in it:





I used a wedge fork to separate the strut from the ball joint. These separated without too much difficulty.




Out of curiosity, I cut the boot off the ball joint to inspect if there was any damage due to the tear. The grease was definitely contaminated with dirt and moisture. After removing the grease, you can see the corrosion on the joint:


That's it for now. The next installment will be removing the control arm.

Frank

[autobonrun]

The photos will prove invaluable to others going down this route.

[frankc]

Yikes, this can't be good!
While removing the right strut, I found a BIG hole in the boot. Needless to say, the ball joint did not move all that well and felt gritty.



I'll be posting results of the Control Arm removal soon!

[frankc]

To remove the control arms, I first unbolted the sway bar mounts from the chassis to remove the sway bar. The mount fasteners are in the yellow circles in this photo taken prior to starting the project (note: the belly pan had already been removed prior to this photo being taken)



Notice the gaps in sway bar bushings (not good). Ignore all the dirt and rust-proofing you see under there. That will be my next step once all the suspension pieces are out of the way (oh joy).

I then slid the sway bar up (towards the front of the car) through the bushing on one control arm, and pulled back on the other side to remove it. The sway bar bushings were very worn so there was a lot of room for me to play with, and even then it was not easy. I don't think this is the way to go if your bushing are good. In retrospect, since I am removing the control arms anyway, this job would have been a lot easier if I had just left the sway bay in the C-A mounts (chassis mounts removed) and removed one of the control arms, after which the sway bar would just slide right out of the bushing.

Anyway, I apologize for not having more pictures of this process, but it is somewhat straight forward.

For the control arms themselves, I first removed the torsion bar height adjuster cap by backing the adjusting screw all the way out:




The foam seal was still there, but fell apart when touched. Fortunately, the bars came out very easily. This allowed me to see my torsion bars for the first time - and I was shocked by the amount of rust. Not a pretty site! I'm surprised this did not snap on me.




The odd thing is that the front 2/3rds of the bars were coated in a nice layer of grease, however the rear 1/3rd did not have any grease at all, and this is where all the rust formed. Is this typical? It seems the aft part of the bar is where most of the grease should be as this is relatively unsealed from the elements (as I'll show later).

I then removed the three large bolts holding the front mounts in place (circled in photo):




Followed by removing the single large & long bolt attaching the rear mount to the aluminum crossmember and chassis (circled). Note, picture is from right side, not left as above. After this, the I wiggled the control arm from the front until it slid out from the cross member.



Here's another question I have - notice the area between the two red arrows. I know the picture is not in focus, but I noticed that the torsion bar (rust colored object) is exposed to the elements in this 2-3mm gap between the rear mount and the crossmember. This seems like a really bad idea, especially with no grease on that side. At least on the other side of the crossmember where the adjusting cap is, there is the foam seal to provide some semblance of protection. Would it be prudent to add one of these seals to fill this gap as well?

Things are starting to look pretty bare in there




Next on the list is the crossmember & steering rack. I decided to drop this whole assembly to remove the tie rods as I wanted to clean up those components anyway, and it provides better access to the brake lines which I'm thinking about replacing depending on if I find any corrosion.

[svlTarga]

Thanks for the detailed pictures and the thread. I've got an 88 that I'm looking to upgrade the suspension on in the near future so I'll be watching with interest.

[frankc]

I dropped off the control arms at a local indy shop to get the ball joints removed. I didn't have the proper tools to do this myself - besides this gives me the opportunity to check out some of the local shops since I'm new in town.

Then I'll remove the mounts and old bushings, have the arms bead blasted and then power coated (along with most everything else).

I'll may end up taking it to a different shop to have the new ball joints installed, again just to give me a reason to chat with the owner and check the place out.

As you can see from this picture, the rear control arm bushings are significantly compressed on one side. The ER PolyBronze bushings are on their way.

[toddu]

Subscribed -

This project is on my list within the next 8 weeks

[notmytarga]

I've caught up with your pictures in my garage - trying to get it done in a week for another track day at Thunderhill. Any more pictures and stories of your progress?

After being unable to remove the Ball joint nut with 'significant force' I pulled out the A arms to take to a more capable place where they can use the nut tool they let me borrow right side up. Now I need to decide which bushings to replace - "while I am in there" sway bar - control arm etc.

This all started with a rock (can you say 'off track excursion') in my steering rack pan that tore a tie rod boot. After the turbo tie rods - and rack refreshing, the alignment guys noted my leaking Konis front and back. So the ball joints and shocks were a given - but I've thought up lot more with your help! Of note is that this car has only 51K original miles in its 32 year life.

[randywebb]

You were smart to use tape to protect the fender edge -- I think I'll use a piece of rubber hose or something next time I have to do this.

[billroth]

Keep on posting photos. And if you don't mind, I have a list of projects that your could also try...

[randywebb]

Bill - can you state what pics you need to see? or what steps?

[SP2]

What a clean disassembly. Great job! I wish this post was here last year when I did this!

[frankc]

My apologies for the lack of updates - I just got back tonight from a week in China. I have some pictures from last weekend that I need to post. I hope to get these up tomorrow.

[Kroggers]

Subscribing

[frankc]

OK, so like I said, sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been traveling (and will be for the next couple of weeks) so things have slowed down a bit.

While waiting for the control arms to come back from local shop sans ball joints, I launched into removing the aluminum crossmember and steering rack.

The two bolts that hold the rear control arm mounts to the crossmember/chassis are really the only thing that hold the crossmember itself to the chassis as well. At this point, I could have dropped the whole crossmember/steering rack assembly as a unit, but I needed to get the two apart anyway so I decided to remove the crossmember first, and then the rack.

To remove the crossmember, I removed the two fasteners holding it to the rack (technically, the rack to it) and then the small fastener for the fuel pump. At this point the only thing holding the crossmember to the chassis was force of habit (which was quite strong). After a little wiggling it came free. Note that I believe only the CIS cars with the aluminum (vs. steel) crossmember had the fuel pump located here.

The picture below shows the three fasteners attaching the steering rack and fuel pump to the crossmember, with the crossmember removed:




Once the crossmember was out, dropping the steering rack was a "simple" matter of removing the clamping bolt and loosening the bushing bracket located above the rack. These are accessed via the smuggler's box. The rack did require a little more tugging from the bottom than I expected to disengage the shaft from the clamp.

The photo below shows the clamping bolt on top, and the two bushing bolts below. Note that the clamping bolt must be completely removed to allow the steering rack shaft to slide out (don't ask me how I know this ).




And here are a couple of shots of the rack out of the car:





From the looks of the grease seepage, and the feel of the rack when turning the shaft by hand, I think servicing the rack will be another one of those tangent projects for me before this goes back in the car.

I should also note at this point how wimpy the stock tie rods are. I had assumed up until this point that the joint was a U-joint, but it is simply a big rubber bushing that is very compliant! Now I see why the turbo style tie rods make such an improvement in this area.

With the rack out of the car, I could get a very good view of all the brake and fuel lines - and it didn't look good. I started a separate thread on this topic to determine if I should replace them:

Should I replace theses brake and fuel lines?

As a result of that thread, I decided to replace both sets of lines, so now I'm reasearching that process.

That's it for now. I'll post some more later this weekend (after the marathon tomorrow!).

Frank

[frankc]

Waiting to get the control arms back is a good time to continue my quest to remove the rust proofing from the bottom of the car. I'm experimenting with different techniques and I'll report back which works best for me.

Oh, and here's a picture of how empty things look with the rack removed (and a little clean-up).



Frank

[randywebb]

Great thread and pics!

Do you have any pics of the smuggler's box re "removing the clamping bolt and loosening the bushing bracket located above the rack. These are accessed via the smuggler's box."

And do you mean the clamp that goes around the steering rod itself, after the U joints?

[frankc]

Randy,

The second photo in the series posted today I believe shows the picture inside the smuggler's box you are asking about. Here's a link to the picture I'm referring to...



The U-joint & rack shaft were directly accessable (at least in my car) without having to do anything other than open the door. The fasteners I'm talking about are circled.

Note that I have removed the Air Conditioning from my car, so perhaps your box may be a bit more crowded if you have A/C, but I don't believe it will hinder your efforts.

Also, you may not have to loosen the bushing bracket, but I found it easier to allow me to move things around better.

Frank

[scottbooth]

Hi Frank,

I am removing the undercoating and PVC from my car as well. I have been following your thread with interest as I will of course need to drop the suspension out to complete this job - but that process looked like it might be comparatively easy and fun, so I am doing the bulk of the undercoat stripping first.

Actually I have a somewhat more sensible excuse for doing the stripping first. I found some rust on the fenders when I pulled off my rocker covers, and following the standard edict of rust ("where there is some, there is more") I want to make sure the tub is solid before I spend any time or money on the planned suspension upgrades. For paranoid folk like me this means getting under the PVC to make sure there is nice shiny metal everywhere. (I know, I have a problem. My wife reminds me of this frequently.)

So far I have tried two methods that worked to some degree. The first was to use a heat gun to get the PVC and undercoat nice and smokin'-hot, then scrape it off with a putty knife. This released some nasty fumes (I am working in a heated garage so the ventilation is not great) and was not particularly quick or easy. It also seemed hard to work around all of the ridges that are stamped into the floor pan of the car.

The second method - which I seem to be sticking with so far - is a wire stripping brush on a high speed drill. High speed is important, I first tried my strong-but-slow drill (750rpm but lots of torque) and it didn't work very well. My weak-but-fast drill (2800rpm) works much better. With the higher speed the brush seems to "melt" the PVC off, and it will strip (though slowly) with very little applied force. Basically I can let the brush run as fast as it will and let the tool do the work, as opposed to jamming it against the underside of the car. It is still slow going.

It is a wicked dirty job. You need goggles that fit very tightly lest you get bits of undercoat in your eye, which is not much fun. Because they can stay in there for days. (Ask me how I know).

Not sure if any of this will help but it's what I have found so far. If you have found the magic bullet by all means let me know.

And now it is time for me to put on my hat, ear plugs, goggles and respirator and go make some more noise and mess. (Really - this was a huge coincidence that I happened to catch up on this thread while procrastinating for the above job.)

Good luck

Scott
78 SC - losing weight the slow way