Reassemble parts with new poly bushings and hardware
Assemble on chassis
Add hubs and wheel mounts
Each corner of the front suspension was removed from the chassis as an entire unit during the dissassembly phase of the project.
I did this very simply by unbolting the lower wishbone mounting brackets from the chassis, and unbolting the upper
fulcrum pin from the suspension turret. This allowed each corner to come off as a unit to be reconditioned later as a unit.
The plan was to do one side at-a-time.
I brought each unit to the workbench to dissassemble. Armed with a full set of hand tools and impact tools, I set about separating the unit
into its major pieces. Eventually, each corner was broken down to:
Upper fulcrum pin (1)
Upper arms (2)
Upper ball-joint (1)
Vertical link (complete with steering arm and stub axle)
Lower trunnion (1)
Lower arms (complete with spring pan)
Road spring
Also removed, but set aside for a later date were the:
Brake calipers
Brake dust shields
Brake discs
Hubs and bearings
Wire wheel mounts
Once a suspension point was torn down, the first task was to remove the old bushings from the upper and lower suspension arms.
The bushings came out from the upper arms quite easily, but I had to burn out the bushings from the lower arms. (Much like I did to the
bushings from the rear trailing arms). Once the bushings were out, I cleaned all parts to bare metal, being careful not to harm them in the sandblaster.
This was challenging because several of the parts have both polished and threaded sections that can be harmed by such an abrasive cleaning method.
I then brought those parts to the house and set about painting them with the same flat black protective paint I used on the rear of the car.
Now that the parts were all cleaned and freshly coated with paint, it was time to build them back together using new poly bushings and hardware.
On the workbench at home I assembled the upper arms to the upper fulcrum pins complete with brand new bushings and assembling hardware.
This brought about the first research project to determine which way round to orient the upper fulcrum pin on the suspension turret. According to the workshop
manual, the curve of the pin should be on the outside and the flat on the inside. However, it was the opposite originally. After learning that
it effected the camber of the vertical link, and therefore the wheel, I elected to get as much camber as I could and assembled the arms to the pin
according to the manual, as it did offer a slight increase in camber, due to the offset of the pin's center-line relative to the bolts holes.
Next, I purchased a new upper ball-joint and secured it to the opposite end of the upper arms. This completed the upper arm assembly.
I then moved to the lower arms which were never separated from the spring pan. The first task was to add the mounting brackets to the inner-end of the lower arms.
For this I purchased new mounting brackets of TR-6 design, which feature two studs for securing it into the chassis, as opposed to the very unsafe 1 stud used orginally.
I affixed the brackets to the arms making sure to use new bushings and fasteners. On the outside end of the lower arms I attached the original 3 degree trunnion, using new
bushings, rings and hardware. Getting the order right on this myriad of parts took a while, but I eventually found the solution in the Moss parts catalog of all places!
At this point I had fully-assembled upper and lower arms, ready to mount to the chassis. I took these, plus the vertical link and road spring to the shop to assemble it
to the chassis. I bolted the upper fulcrum bracket to the suspension turret, then the lower mounting brackets into their reinforced, 2-hole mounting locations on the chassis.
After filling the trunnion with grease and placing a new grease boot on the link, I screwed the vertical link into the trunnion until it could go no further, then backed it off until the steering arm was oriented correctly forward.
I added the steering stop and ensured that the link go turn end-to-end without binding.
Next step was to add the road spring. This turned out to be quite a challenge as the spring takes a lot of force to compress. From top to bottom I added a poly srping pad,
the spring spacer, another poly spring pad, the spring itself and finally the bottom pad. This was compressed into the turret until I could put the upper ball-joint tapered end into the hole at the top
of the vertical link. Once I added the nyloc nut and tightened a bit, I uncompressed the spring and voila, the suspension was on.
Once I had one side on completely, and all the fasteners "snug" tight, only then did I repeat this entire process for the opposite side for fear of mixing the handed parts.
What remains is basically setting the geometry and tightening all the fasteners to the appropriate torque, which is not advisable to do until you have the full weight of the car being supported by the suspension.
The content of this page in intended only to communicate my own thoughts, actions and opinions while restoring my own automobile.
It is not meant to serve as instruction for others to do maintenance on their vehicles.
