Larry,
Thanks for the informative post. Glad to hear you're feeling well enough to
undertake this work, especially considering the heat and humidity. I won't
torture you with the weather report from Sundyeggo. ;-)
A couple of comments prompted by you post. First, and it's a moot point in
your case, but I've had the misfortune to have one of the crossmember bolts
fall out of the socket while trying to get them installed. BUMMER!!,
because they fall inside the crossmember and you have to drop it, turn it
over and shake the damned thing out. Or maybe you can snag it with a
magnetic pickup tool if you're real lucky. But, to avoid this possibility,
use a little tape stuck inside the socket to make sure it won't come out
until you really get it threaded into the frame.
Regarding the question of positioning of the crossmember before you tighten
it down, you should check the axle-to-axle distances on each side to get it
square with the rear axle. But, of course, that assumes the rear axle is
square with the chassis, doesn't it. And then there's the question of
side-to-side alignment too. If you were really fanatical about this, you
would drop plumb lines down from each axle to the floor and then measure
the distances, including the diagonals, and adjust accordingly. Most of us
are just happy to get all four bolts in without having to bend the frame or
grind the holes bigger. ;-) Another point, I assume you have left the rack
mounts in the same location rather than having them moved back 1/2" as Dale
and others have done to improve the steering geometry. I forget just what's
stock and what's not on your setup. In any case, I don't think moving the
crossmember back the 1/8" or so you have to play with would make any real
difference in terms of fan clearance. I would suggest you check the fan and
see if there's paint missing from it and take a little off there if need be.
Sounds like you're in the home stretch. Keep up the good work!!
TTFN,
Bob
At 08:14 AM 7/26/99 -0400, Wright, Larry wrote:
>"Underneath", installment #12
>
> The front crossmember is back in the car now, and most of the
>front suspension with it. I'm finally feeling well enough from whatever
>I caught to resume working on the car, even though it's so hot and humid
>that after an hour my hands are too slippery to hold the tools. I should
>have had the garage air-conditioned, eh?
> There have been a fair # of posts on how to install the front
>suspension; I combined bits of several and added my own experiences.
>First, I ignored at least one recommendation to install the x-member
>"bare"; mine went in with almost everything but the calipers and
>hubs/rotors. The steering rack is on, but loosely-- I rear somewhere
>that if the rack is bolted on tight before the x-member is under the
>strain of holding up the car, that when the car is back on its wheels
>the rack binds up. So, those bolts will be tightened later (I sure hope
>I remember!) and they won't be easy to get to, if I recall. Oh yes; I
>had over-drilled the holes for the aluminum wedges, but I found that
>3/16" pop rivets, 1/4" long, work just fine.
> I had two hydraulic trolley jacks, and I borrowed a third. This
>way each outboard corner of the suspension was supported, plus one in
>the middle. Then I just started jacking, one at a time, and I was
>hopping about all over the (smallish) garage between the three jacks and
>the wheel wells where I was looking to see what would 'foul' next. The
>real issue there was keeping the steering rack clear of the radiator.
>Yup, I left the radiator in, despite common practice being apparently to
>remove it. But it worked. A couple of boltheads on the rack may have
>"touched" the fins on the radiator, but there are no coolant puddles
>under the car. This whole process would be a lot easier on a gutted car
>being restored, with less "stuff" in the way. Oh; someone asked about
>clearing the frame. Yeah, the rear of the upper control arms, back where
>the attach to the fulcrum pins, want to snag the flange of the frame
>rails (if ya wanna call them that). But you can get around this: raise
>one side over the flange shove the suspension on that side up, inward
>and rearward so the rear of the control arm is in the little "pocket" on
>the fenderwell there, and then the other side will clear. Barely.
> Once I was close, I decided to try the recently described, by
>Dave Binkley (thanks!), method of using threaded rods. I didn't use them
>so much to lift the x-member; I did it more to locate the holes and get
>them aligned. With the gap above the wedges at < 1/2", you can see the
>rods and estimate from the angle they're hanging at which way to move
>the x-member. Also, you can knock off at the end of a day and leave
>everything there, and the rods will hold the assembly in place. I guess
>the neatest method might be to find some giant allen-key setscrews, and
>grind a chamfered surface at the allen-key end, and install them in the
>frame first, to act as locating pins. Then, after getting the x-member
>in place, you can back them out, one at a time, to replace with the
>correct screws (Hey! why not leave 'em in, and put nuts on them????).
>Now, I've never seen set-screws that big...
> Then came the part I don't like. I _really_ don't care for being
>under the car, especially when it's on the stands under the frame on
>such a small 'footprint'. But I found there was no substitute for
>getting under and sighting the final alignment of the holes by eye, so I
>got under there. If the car had fallen, with me wedged between all of
>those jackstands and the three trolley jacks, no way could I have rolled
>out from under in time. And there was no one home to hear the squishing
>sound when it landed on me. Well, anyway, I'm writing this, so it didn't
>happen. BTW, I recommend using a socket (bolt heads are 3/4")
>transitioned down to a 3/8", or better yet 1/4", drive extension. This
>will come really close to the lower control arm as you feed the bolts
>upwards and you need all of the "wiggling room" you can get. The old
>trick of taping the bolt into the socket might be a good idea, so you
>don't lose any inside the x-member (I've done that before), but I forgot
>about it until just now.
> Good news: the holes all lined up. The recent warning about the
>frame "spreading", requiring the car to be lifted by the engine to take
>its weight off the frame and allow the frame rails to "spring" inward,
>didn't apply to my car, the holes lined right up. Probably dumb luck on
>my part. So the bolts all went in. I used the old thick washers on those
>bolts as I couldn't find new ones, but they had cleaned up well with a
>wire wheel and a coat of paint.
> Right now the bolts are just snug. The x-member can be moved
>around a bit, and it occurred to me I could affect the alignment of the
>suspension by where the x-member is with I torque it down. Should I be
>looking to a specific point on the car as a benchmark for taking
>measurements ("he asked optimistically")? Or should I just shove the
>whole things rearward, especially in light of recent discussions of
>clearances -- or lack -- betwixt steering rack and engine fan? There's a
>bit of paint worn away from the very center of the rack, and it occurs
>to me now that this could explain the worn paint on a rack rebuilt just
>a couple of years back.
> One part not on the x-member is the brake line going to the left
>caliper. I got a set of bendemyourselfs from TTMS, and tried to match up
>the bends in the old line, which I had found dangling from the car still
>bolted to the so-called "5-way" connector. That looked neat until I
>started looking at where it attaches to the car. the old line, and my
>copy, follow the inside curve of the x-member where it's clipped in
>place, and then comes upward, reasonably sharply, and then ends facing
>rearward, in the vicinity of the RR x-member mounting bolt hole. The
>problem? The "5-way" on the car is directly above the RF x-member hole;
>what, 6-8 inches further forward? How do I route the brake line all of
>the way up there? The manual doesn't have a picture of the brake lines.
>I really could use a bit of advice on this.
> It got just too hot yesterday afternoon to work in the garage,
>but my basement workshop was comfortably cool, so I was cleaning up the
>hubs and bearings. I had painted the hubs, had the machine work done,
>and attached the new ventilated rotors _without_ cleaning the old grease
>out. A toothbrush and some kerosene -- I have a crude parts cleaning
>container -- did the job w/out making a mess of the outside of the hub.
>The bearings cleaned up nicely, as well, after a good soak. I bought
>synthetic grease and a grease gun, I don't know if it'll make any
>difference or not.
>
>Lawrence R. Wright
>Purchasing Analyst
>Andrews Office Products Div. of USOP
>larry.wright@usop.com (new)
>Ph. 301.386.7923 Fx. 301.386.5333
Robert L. Palmer
UCSD, Dept. of AMES
619-822-1037 (o)
760-599-9927 (h)
rpalmer@ucsd.edu
rpalmer@cts.com
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