Clean trailing arms, road springs, lever shocks and shock links
Inspect welds on trailing arms
Flush lever shocks of all old oil and replace with new oil. Test for smooth operation.
Paint trailing arms, road springs, lever shocks and shock links
Reassemble suspension on the chassis using all new polyurethane bushings and Grade 8 fasteners
Trailing arms were first cleaned, which included removing the original bushings. I accomplished this
by lighting them on fire and essentially burning them out. The smell was horrible, but it made for quick work.
Once the bushings were out, I cleaned the arms by blasting them with a fine-grit medium and then coated them with
a clear satin finish to keep them protected. Once the clear coat dried, I installed new polyurethane bushings
ordered from TRF and new rubber plugs for the four holes in each arm. After this the renewed arms were ready to put on the chassis.
Since the original trailing arm brackets were bent and therefore weakened, I decided it would be best to replace them for safety's sake.
I looked around and found that TRF sold mounting brackets that were adjustable, allowing one to change the camber of the wheel
by changing the horizontal angle of the arm within the bracket at both ends. The added benefit to these was that they could help me inexpensively compensate
for the chassis being slightly higher on the passenger-side. The only issue I have is that the kit from TRF came with chassis-mounting bolts that are far
shorter that the original, leaving no room for shims. Therefore I replaced the bolts the kit shipped with for 3 1/2" bolts that were original.
I left the shock links on the lever shocks and cleaned them using a wire wheel on a bench grinder. I emptied them of the fluid (which was
some super-thick, black goo), cleaned them out with some brake cleaner then refilled them with heavy duty fork oil sold at my local Harley-Davidson
dealer. Once filled, I worked the lever of each shock about a dozen times to make sure all was well, then painted them flat black.
To cut down on costs I decided to retain the original road springs. They are often criticized for being too "soft", but I have a rule on the project
to only replace those items that require it, in order to keep costs down. Like the trailing arms, the road coils were also blasted with a fine medium and painted flat-black like the lever shocks.
The lever shocks were bolted onto the chassis and torqued down according to the manual's specs. The mounting brackets were then affixed to the trailing arms, then the
whole assembly was bolted into the chassis and torqued. At this point the arms were secured to the chassis, with the rear part touching the floor. The road springs, with polyurethane pads, were added into place and compressed so that I could secure the arms to the shock links,
being sure to replace the old busgings here as well.
Since the body is seven feet in the air, compressing the spring was easy using my make-shift, but very secure and strong, spring compressor.
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.
