Sorry to rain on your parade, but if you are replacing old worn out bushings
with nice new or even harder than new urethane bushings, then the alignment
is off anyway. The toe-in (or whatever they call it for the rear wheels) may
stay the same (is say may because that assumes that the bushings were only
worn/softened up and down which is not likely) but the camber is most
definitely going to be off which requires shuffling the shims to correct.
Alas, I believe that just pulling the bolts doesn't save you anything on a
properly done job. Of course if the object of the exercise is just to ram
the bushings in and be roughly driveable, or for even simple maintenance,
then you are quite right, it would be best if the trailing arms could be
dropped without having to screw up the alignment. Some engineer didn't get
his tea the day they figured out that procedure.
Mark Hooper
72 TR6 (which is giving me all sorts of suspension joy)
-----Original Message-----
From: Raymond Hatfield [mailto:iron_horse819@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 9:22 AM
To: Tom White; 'triumphs@autox.team.net'
Subject: Re: Sadistic so-and-so's
--- Tom White <tom.white@sgsi.com> wrote:
> I don't know if it was a british engineer, some mechanic or the DPO, but
> I'm really mad at somebody. I'm mad at the person who put in the bolt
> on the inner bracket of the trailing arm on the rear suspension of my 4A
> IRS. They must be sadistic because they decided to thread the bolt from
> the end which nearly abutts (sp?) the frame. As a result, removing the
> trailing arm to replace the two bushings is not possible. Instead, one
> must unbolt the whole bracket from the frame, upsetting the shims & rear
> camber, etc. Would it have been so hard to just put the bolt in from
> the other side, where it could just be drawn out and the arm easily
> removed? Grrr! Has anyone else shared this joy? Is there some good
> reason for threading the bolt from the difficult side?
>
> - annoyed Tom
Hello Tom,
Yep, My '4A was set up exactly the same way. My solution was to cut the
head
off of the bolt with a grinder and replace it, rather than mess up the
alignment. The only problem I found with that approach is the replacement
bolts(from Moss) were too long and hit the frame before the heads touched
the
bracket. Out came the grinder again and I wacked off about 1/4" to make it
fit. I only had to do this to the inboard bracket, plenty of room on the
outboard one. I hope you have an easier time putting the arm back in place,
I
had to beat on it with a hammer to get it back in.
=====
Raymond L. Hatfield
'65 TR4A IRS, O/D, SAH Tuned "Chance"
'73 Stag 4.3L, Auto, A/C, etc "Molly"
Little Rock, AR
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