A full day today. Actually a full three day weekend. There is still light
out, but I've got to give it a rest. Besides I've come to a dilema which
I'll get to in a moment.
Ok, the sage continues. I've been working on the driver's side first as
that is where I thought I had the most problems though I'm doing both sides
at the same time, of course. Had a devil of a time dropping the wishbone
to pop in the bushings, so while I was soaking bolts I tackled the other
side. What a difference! Took the coil off no prob. Neither fulcrum pin
nut gave any trouble and then I was to the pins themselves. Levered them
off without a hitch. Wish the other side had gone like this, but I'm
thankful both sides weren't a bear. Pulled out the old rubber bushings.
Not in bad shape but changing to poly on both sides. Getting the pins and
bushing all lined up was quite a chore until I thought of jacking up the
outer side of the wishbone. That lined it up neatly and I was done with
the passenger's side. Yippeee!
So then I went back to my soaked nuts and bolts. After what seemed like
too much work compared to the other side I lowered the wishbone and here is
my dilemma.
Dilema: This side doesn't look like the passenger's side. I've already
reported that there were no bushings on this side. Well, what there =is=
is a set of metal fittings welded on each side of each wishbone arm. At
least I think they are welded...maybe they are just jammed in, but I think
I saw a bit of weld to hold them in place. There ain't no way to put the
bushings in. These metal pieces seemed to be taking the place of propper
rubber or poly bushings; they have the same lip like the rubber/poly.
Questions:
What was the previous owner thinking??!! Is this some performance feature
I don't know about or is it as I suspect, a stupid work around that could
have been dangerous?
Should I bother trying to remove them by chiseling or something or should I
just buy a new/used wishbone?
Suspecting the latter - does anyone have a decent used wishbone cheap? New
seem to be around $130 and I'd like to do much better than that. The costs
are sort of mounting up on this puppy already.
As usual, many thanks for any advice.
Philip
Burgundy 1974 Midget
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