Yesterday I asked about the amount of acceptable play in the fulcrum pin
for the outer lower wishbone (where it connects to the swivel assembly on
a '79 Midget). After researching the archives at List Quest (gotta love
it!), I have come to the conclusion that I am *confused*. I think I am
one of those folks that need to see how something goes together to
understand how it works; thus, I am going to disassemble the damned thing
today, and make a decision from there.... Am afraid it's going to be one
of those "as long as I'm in there things...."
On other matters, I had intended to (among other things) refill and bleed
the shocks. I actually accomplished this, so the day was not a total
loss! I re-read the variety of posts on this and employed the common
suggestions; in particular the ones by Peter C. and Mike Gigante (you
earned the T-shirt, Mike!).
My engine compartment, etc, is fairly clean, but I sprayed it again to
make the job a little less painful. Once the shocks were out, I cleaned
the exteriors again prior to dissassembly. As a side note, the arms were
painted black, and the bodies were natural aluminum (but there was some
light blue paint in evidence on the bottom of the right-hand shock body).
I removed both plugs (large and small) and drained the fluid from those,
after carefully laying the valve assembly aside (noting the order it came
out in). Then, I removed the side plate and drained the fluid out of the
body. This stuff smells almost as bad as used gear oil. Nasty looking
stuff, too: black, bits of metal, and just kind of yucky. Noticed that
the things were only about half-full, too. Methinks this might have had
an effect on ride quality....
Stuck the assembly in the parts washer and flushed it out. The washer is
large (25 gallons), so I held it below the surface, and worked the arm
back and forth to flush the chambers more completely. After this, I
sprayed the entire assembly, inside and out, with brake/parts cleaner.
When I was satisfied that it was clean, I c-clamped the assembly to the
shelf inside the parts washer so that the open side plate chamber was up,
filled the chamber with brake/parts cleaner, and worked the arm some
more. This completed the flushing. Sprayed it off again with the
cleaner, then cleaned the large and small plugs, the valve pieces, and
the gasket using brake/parts cleaner.
I put the large plug in place, stuck the assembly in the vise with the
open side up and filled it with transmission leak sealer/conditioner, and
replaced the cover temporarily along with the small plug (the gasket was
still in decent shape). I then rotated the assembly so the large plug
was up and level, and c-clamped it to the top of the vise (to ensure room
to work the arm). I then removed the large plug, and filled that chamber
with transmission leak sealer/conditioner. I worked the arm back and
forth for a bit to circulate the fluid, and then set it aside for while I
did all of the above steps to the other shock.
After cleaning the second shock (it took me about an hour to clean and
bring the second shock to this point), I returned to the first shock. I
drained off the transmission leak sealer/conditioner by removing the
plugs and side cover; I did not re-clean the internals. I replaced the
large plug (still with no valve), and put the shock back in the vise with
the open side plate chamber up and level. I filled this to the very edge
of the chamber with ATF (I used Dexron III, FWIW), and worked the arm
back and forth a few times to chase out any air.
Next, I used a rag dampened with carb cleaner to wipe off the gasket
mounting surfaces to remove any trace of ATF, and recleaned the gasket
with carb cleaner. I put a *thin* coat of RTV gasket sealer (the
Permatex brown stuff) on both sides of the gasket, and reinstalled the
side plate. Because the screws for the side plate did not have lock
washers, I purchased 12 #8 lock washers and installed these at the same
time (don't know if these should be there from the factory or not, but I
feel a bunch more comfortable with them on).
The assemly was then rotated back to an upright position, so the the
large plug was up and level. I c-clamped this to the top of the vise so
that I could move the arm through its full travel. I removed the large
plug and, still sans valve, filled the chamber with ATF. Using a syringe
(not just for dashpots anymore), I also filled the small fill plug on the
side plate so that the fluid was level with the bottom inside lip of the
fill hole.
Now that I was ready to bleed the shocks, I refilled the syringe with
ATF, and placed the tip of it in the large plug chamber. I *
s-l-o-w-l-y * and smoothly worked the arm from the upright position to
the full down position and back while simultaneously adding ATF with the
syringe. I took about five seconds to move the arm through both
positions. I repeated this until I (a) could add no more fluid, and (b)
could see no more air bubbles.
After I was satisfied that the shocks were bled, I topped off the small
fill hole again, and replaced the plug. I then topped off the large plug
chamber again (to the very edge), carefull inserted the (clean) valve
assembly, and replaced the plug. A bit of ATF will come out when this
done, so I wrapped a rag around the shock to keep the mess to a minimum.
Putting in the ATF and bleeding only took about 15 minutes, so I let the
other shock set for another 45 minutes to soak up the transmission leak
sealer/conditioner, then I repeated the filling and bleeding process.
Both shocks appear to be doing what they are supposed to, but I'll know
more after they are installed.
Rich
Council Bluffs, Iowa
'74.5 RB MGB "Miss Maggie"
'78 Chevy Half-Ton "Waltzin' Matilda" (LBC Support Vehicle)
'79 Midget "Miss Molly"
richard.arnold@juno.com or rdarnold@neonramp.com
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