Hi, Craig.
Just finished this job on my '72 GT. I got hold of a good, used set of
A-arms at an autojumble (the oval hole syndrome is very common). Put in V8
bushes, rebuilt shocks and every rubber and bolt has been changed, along
with the springs, which were deeply goosed. I also ground and cross-drilled
the fulcrum bushes, so the bolts get greased as well as the fulcrum bushes.
Problems:
I removed the X-member to blast clean it. Above the member, there were rot
holes in the rails, between the two mounting studs, r.h was the worst. Also,
there were holes in the rails where the a/r bar bushes rest against the
undersides of them. You can see the rails with the X-member in place so it's
worth levering in the gap between the studs to check the rails are sound.
You need to undo four bolts to look at the roll bar mount areas.
I found a figure of 40 lb/ft. for the shock mounting bolts. This caused one
of the spring washers to self-destruct, making me think that the thread in
the X-member had stripped-scary. 30 lb/ft is quite enough, in my view.
Couldn't get the top links into the shock eyes so I removed the pinch bolt
on the shock arm and wriggled the arm off completely. Then, I could use the
centre bolt to pull the arms back together, with a thin drift keeping the
outer bushes in place between the arms. Worked for me!
Brake bleeding turned out to be a long process. I'd rebuilt the front
calipers but most of the air came out via the rear bleed points. The only
solution was to bleed the system, go away for about an hour to let the air
separate, then bleed it again and again. Took about 2 litres but the pedal's
perfect now.
In the final analysis, this job was worthwhile. The car now goes where *I*
want it to go and all the clatters and bamgs form the front end are gone.
Good Luck,
Dave H.
> Started to tackle the rebuild of the front suspension on my '71 B today.
> Disassembled the passenger side assembly tonight. Went pretty smoothly,
> except that I had to cut the fulcrum pin holding the shock to the swivel
> axle (as anticipated, ordered new bolts for that purpose, and thank God I
> bought that angle grinder). The lever shock on this side was really bad
had
> absolutely no resistance. I was able to remove the lower trunion bolt,
only
> to discover it was some el cheapo bolt with full length threads, and no
> special nuts w/ split pins either (as an aside, even where there were
those
> special nuts, the DPO didn't bother to use split pins anyway). At this
> point, I thought this was just another DPO cost-cutting measure, so I
> started the reassembly. Pressed in my V8 bushes into the A-arms, and
> remounted them onto the car w/ the spring pan. Added the new spring, and
> jacked up the pan slightly so I could get the new trunion bolt into place.
> Pushed the bolt through, and its way too short. Reason? Looks like the
holes
> for the trunion bolt on the A-arms had ovaled, and the DPO's fix was to
weld
> some metal plate to the arms, and re-drill the holes (explains the longer
> trunion bolt). Seeing that both A-arms on the other side are quite bent
and
> twisted (???), I guess I'll just get new A-arms for this side also. The
> kingpin on this side was nice and tight and had no play. I am probably
going
> to take apart the other side tomorrow, and hopefully will not find any
more
> surprises.
>
> Craig
> '71 B
>
>
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