Frank and Scott,

I'm getting ready to do a complete brake and suspension re-fresh and underbody preservation. I have a friend who restores VW bugs and has done a few Porsches in the past. I told him I was planning on using a wire brush on my grinder. He said that would just melt the PVC and spread it around. He said the best way to strip the PVC is to use Aircraft Paint stripper. The thick stuff, that is oderless. You simply "paint" it on with a paint brush, wait a half an hour and scrap it off with a putty knife. Follow that with POR15 Marine Clean and you should have only metal left.

Thats is what I'm planning on doing now.
-Matt

Great thread, Frank. Thank you. Subscribing.

Frank, back to the original title of this thread, I'm going to describe some issues I had with the steering rack refreshing. You are helping people more than vice-versa with your careful description and spot-on pictures with notations - keep it up. Quality treads such as these need to be edited and placed in the Technical Articles portion of this site. None that I saw in the list covered anything in the front suspension other than torsion bars and A arm bushings.

Refreshing your steering rack has been recommended in this BBS because of the 5-10 year lifetime for grease. My boot got torn for a few weeks and so I thought I should root out any contamination. Mine was well greased with the bearings in good condition.

A good option is to leave it intact and just clean up the exterior and then take off the pressure slide spring cover and bearing cover to inspect. There are shims under both of these covers. Add grease and use a sealant when replacing the covers. I found remnants of sealant when mine came of. I had less external grease mess than you had (and you say you do concours - shame!).

If you want to completely disassemble I learned some things. The pinion will come out the roller bearing side but not the steering shaft/needle bearing side. This means that the steering shaft needs to come off first. Flatten the retainer strip - careful, mine broke between the bolts where it splits around the shaft - and remove the 2 bolts that connects the steering shaft that comes up into the smugglers box , through a block of rubber, to the rack. Of note is that the bushing under the hex nuts in the smugglers box has a needle bearing in it. Then there is a 'better replace it' nylon nut holding the bracket onto the pinion. Under that bracket that the 2 bolts threaded into I had a problem in the assembly steps. So take notes/photos of how yours is arranged. According to the Porsche shop manual there is a washer and an O-ring under that bracket and on top of the needle bearing. I could not get it to assemble without that O-ring binding. Now you can press/drive the pinion out with the roller bearing on the other side after removing the plate and counting shims (even the one that is stuck to the plate) - I did this multiple times checking tolerances, trying to get things to fit better. You might just leave the roller bearing and pinion attached for cleaning. If you take it apart make special note and pictures of the shaft washers and shims against the bearing - I had an extra over the manual diagram.

The bearing numbers are standard/cheap/readily available and a good thread describes them - the needle bearing falls apart when cleaned - beware. I was stupid and tried to assemble it dry for a while - use 'assembly' grease. As far a grease goes the stuff for CV's probably makes the most sense but I used High temp bearing grease - because I had some.

Good luck and let me know how your O-ring turns out.

the picture inside the smuggler's box... Thx - I didn't recognize it at first -- mine is nowhere near that clean!

Scott and Matt,

Actually when I said "rustproofing removal", I was implying a kinder, gentler approach. The car (originally delivered in Pittsburgh area) had been rustproofed when new. For those of you not from the north (I'm originally from OH myself), a typical process back then was to coat the entire underside of the vehicle with a tar-like substance to protect it from the harsh winter climate. This is the material I'm trying to remove. On the body panel surfaces, this tar material has retained its original properties and is still soft. However on surfaces that get hot (e.g. transmission), it has hardened and will not dissolve with solvent. When I had the engine rebuilt years ago, I belived they boiled it in some sort of solvent and it cleaned up very nice.

The paint underneath the rustproofing is in very good condition, thus I simply want to remove the tar stuff. I have tried using solvents, which works, but is much too slow (and messy). Now if I had the car turned upside-down, that would be different :).

Fortunately, it appears the tar was applied right over the original cosmoline. This creates a nice soft waxy layer between the tar and paint, and I found that I can use a soft plastic scraper to scrape the bulk of the material off, and then finish up with solvent. The scraper I found that works best (so far) is a thick guitar pick. It has nice rounded edges that won't harm the paint, and it is stiff enough to not flex. Here is a picture of a section that I just scraped and I'm about to use solvent on to finish. Note the amber colored layer between the tar and the paint - This is what I believe is the original cosomoline.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1171847917.jpg

I am going to try a heat gun to soften the tar even further to see if that speeds up the process.

Frank

NowMyTarga,

Thanks for the advice on the steering rack servicing. I'm not sure I follow everything you are saying, but I have not researched this too much yet (other than a few threads I found here) so it should be much clearer once I do. I have the factory service manual so I'll take a look in there as well. Does the Bentley manual cover this? I haven't purchased it yet but I need to.

Yes, I noticed the roller bearing in that big rubber bushing in the smuggler's box as well. It seemed well lubricated and in good shape, so I did not plan on replacing it. Is this something I should consider doing as well?

Frank

I picked up the control arms from the local shop that was removing the ball joints for me. There were no problems in removing the old joints. In fact, the old ball joint nuts look to be in rather good shape! At first I thought they were made of stainless steel as there is not a spot of rust on them, but they definitely stick to a magnet. So perhaps the shop sand blasted them after removing the ball joint? I will have to call the shop and find out the story on these. It doesn't seem possible for them to be this clean after 30 years, and I don't recall my previous mechanic ever replacing them.

Here is a picture. Do you think I should re-use them, or just purchase new ones (they are only about $20 each).

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1171863609.jpg

Anyway, the next step was to remove the old front and rear rubber bushings from the control arms in order to install the new Elephant Racing Poly-Bronze bushing that arrived. Per the instructions, I used the propane torch method to heat the bushing brackets just until the rubber started to smoke, and then twisted the the brackets off. Here's another picture:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1171863844.jpg

By the way, one can't help but wonder how much the standard rubber bushing add to the effective spring rate of the torsion bar. These bushing require quite a bit of torque to pivot the control arm even without the torsion bar installed.

So, with the old bushing removed, I send the parts off to have the paint stripped and then powder coated. Since the inside of the control arm bushings shouldn't be powder coated due to the thickness as it will interfere with pressing the new bushing in, I have decided instead to have the brackets zinc plated. Now I've got to find somebody in town to do that for me.

I'll be placing the order for the fuel lines tomorrow, so either the brake or fuel line replacement will be the next installment.

And one other thing, when removing the camber plates to have them stripped, I noticed that goop on top of them. What is that stuff? It's hard as a rock now. Do I need to replace it? I think I'll post a separate thread on this topic.

Frank

The goop is just there to provide a friction surface to keep things from sliding around. I wouldn't worry about it.


However, the rubber bushing in the camber plate or the entire thing DOES need to be replaced.


Examples:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1171867997.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1171868021.jpg

By the way... how many people think that big curved washer in the top pic should face the other way (concave upwards)??

My steering rack bearings were well greased on disassembly - I didn't think for a minute that I would replace them. According to other rack treads they are available standard bearings.

My ball joint nuts took more of a beating than yours and will be reused. After taking off my A arms I put liquid wrench on the nut in the inverted position overnight. I hadn't been able to budge them while in place. At the helpful shop with the A arm in vise and their "Thor's" impact wrench they both buzzed right off. The $10 Harbor Freight impact couldn't get my lug nuts off! Hopefully the exchanged unit will work somewhat better - I have rear shock bolts to do tomorrow! My A arm bushings will live longer - I spent too much time reading about those issues and am more confused now.

I realize that my description of the steering rack disassembly could be clearer - I should have used the terminology in the manual - but that is forty feet away in the garage...

If you think the guitar pick would work better if it were bigger - there is a 2 inch square scraper that is flat on one side and curves to that edge on the other with round and pointed corners - its came with a Pampered Chef baking stone to clean hardened stuff off - could help you cover more ground. Try a kitchen store.

Randy - My cupped washer was/is concave up, which makes it easier to grab when removing the nut and adjusting the Konis - reverse of those pretty shots. Is that a reflection off the shock dust cover? What color/type is it?

I just removed my Koni innards tonight - I couldn't get the new inserts to drop all the way until I dumped a gizmo that was left in both sides. Perhaps a magnet would work if I didn't have my struts off the ball joints. I hadn't read anywhere that that thing needed to be dealt with. Thought that might be helpful to others.

Really great documentation.
But you're okay with installing unsealed A-arm bushings?

Both greased metal/metal pivots.

shock dust cover? What color/type is it?

- It's just a the regular Bilstein dust cover painted the same silver as on the rest of the car.

Pics of the car at:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=273740&highlight=yet+an other+rgruppe+boring

island911,

I see your point about the unsealed control arm bearings. I guess there are a couple of differences though:

1) New grease can be injected into the bearings to displace old/dirty grease.
2) The bearing material is bronze, not carbon steel and thus won't rust if it gets wet.

Frank

Randy,
The cupped washer on my struts were like NotMyTarga's, that is, sitting on there like a saucer (see pic on page 2 of this thread). Also, did you replace the camber plates? Are the new (OEM) ones now zinc plated rather than painted? I'm trying to decide whether to have my plated or powder coated. The powder coating would hold up better I think, but the plated does look nice (maybe plated & clear powder coated :)).

Notmytarga,
My wife has one of those baking stones too - hmmm, I wonder if she'll notice...

You got me thinking about the Koni struts. I'll have to check them out when I get them back from being stripped. There was not anything bangning around in there though when I dropped them off. But perhaps the remaining oil was causing it to adhere to the bottom.

And I'm not what you meant by "My A arm bushings will live longer - I spent too much time reading about those issues and am more confused now." Are you referring to the ER P-B Vs. rubber bushings?

thanks,
Frank

If you're gonna replace the strut tops, you might want to consider these:

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.c...o_1934_5916466

http://www.dartauto.com/suspension-bushings.html

Jaydubya,
I was planning on going with the ER monoball camber plate bushings that bolt inside of the stock camber plates. Do you feel there is a benefit of going with the style you listed where the monoball is welded in to what appears to be a stock plate?

http://www.elephantracing.com/suspension/monoballs/911weathersealedmonoballs.htm

Frank

Frank - My A arms have held up well and replacing the Ball joints is relatively elective. Replacing any rubber part is tempting after 32 years of compression and oxidation. My sway bar bushings are on the way and will likely arrive too late to allow me to do Thunderhill on Thursday. Replacing the A arm rubber would require me to go your route with Poly - Bronze, buy new A arms, have them refurbished with new rubber or is there really a DIY bushing to put in there that has worked well?? Until I have problems I will spare myself the expense.

Today I set up the new Koni inserts, reinstalled the ball joints, front disc shields, hubs and calipers. I also put the new Koni rears in with the only problem being interpreting the drawings to figure out the adjustment I went one step down from the firmest setting on all corners. I also managed to help my daughter build a kick ass 2 liter soda bottle rocket for science class. Last week her's far surpassed others, so I had to tweak it to stay ahead of the parachute imitators. I'm sending at least one shock washer up as payload, inertial mass.

Also, did you replace the camber plates?
- Yes, what you see in my pic is all new.


We now have a bunch of cross-queries going on this thread... I will just say that monoballs are not what you really want to use for a street car.

Why is that?

it's called shock