Mathilda's Long Awaited Front End Surgery

Gerald Morris

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Just wanted to mention that I've commenced rebuilding Mathilda's front suspension, as I've alluded to off and on since joining this august Forum nigh 21 months ago. I've found strong evidence this has never been done before, given the degree of chemical and metallic bonding between the parts. Its been slow torture for that reason. Despite obtaining the "right toolz" to do this job, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics clearly is driving us on this cruise. Fortunately, things ARE coming apart sans breaking (except my vertabrae, blood vessels, checking account & such, but the CAR is doing FINE!) thanks be to God, so I just have to keep slogging through these muddy trenches until The End. Pics will follow frequently. Will put a few up later tonight. What could be a better way to start 2018?!
 
I've been through this so I know the hurdles you face, nothing big so you should be okay. I found that all the tools for the A/B/E body cars are too small for our land barges. I got an upper bushing stick on the tool and made the lower pivot tool bigger than I thought I'd need, and it was big enough by a 1/2". I laughed when I made it and was stunned when I used it.

But hallelujah to progress my brother! Glad to see you are improving things as you can.
 
How’s your trans?
 
What are you using for replacement parts? Moog, PST, NOS or something else?
 
[QUOTE="Gerald Morris, things ARE coming apart sans breaking (except my vertabrae, blood vessels, checking account & suchQUOTE]



Elequently put. The going back together part is always better.
 
How’s your trans?

SUPER! Those fellows at Herman's Automatic Transmissions here in south Tucson are Artists! Been doing it there for 43 years, so herman Roush remembers the 727 quite well, as does his junior partner, a sexagenarian sprat named Rick, who did Mathilda's tranny. Bill came to just under $1100 including tax. Folks concur we got a damned good deal here.
 
What are you using for replacement parts? Moog, PST, NOS or something else?

Mostly Moog, and some OEM stuff from Rick Ehrenberg and a kit from Andersen Restorations. The latter was OK, but I opted to go to Rock Auto and Ehrenberg for some of the mission critical stuff. Henceforth, I'll draw up my list and make my OWN kit, but it was good to start with something, never having done this before and aside from botching initial delivery with 2 left lower ball joints and shorting me on 2 of the 4 upper control arm bushings they did alright.
 
NOW for an Update, 12/31/2017 A. D., 23:41:08 MST

due to the over-riding necessity of getting Mathilda back on her wheels early this week, I planned this job in 2 basic stages, Driver side, then passenger. The driver side being worst for wear, it came first and has been truly dreadful. I've wrenched enough '60s cars to know what truly dreadful means too. Again, I only can thank the Lord, His Archangel Raphael, and the special Guardian Angel the Good Padres at Santa Cruz blessed into service in Mathilda as HER Resident Spirit. To wit: Mathilda is an "anti-Christine" who only accepts my own blood as sacrifice. Fair enough: we got her on St. Patrick's Day to replace a 1988 GM beer can that got totaled by a 30 mph (relative) or so love tap from behind. Good Riddance AND the insurance payoff got us 'Tilly, so I say, "DEO GRATIAS!"

To business...

All BUT the last, most crucial old parts have been disassembled and discarded if to be replaced. The show-stopper is the lower control arm bushing, which I've learned from today's Googling is the most common and severe such obstacle to a front suspension rebuild. Everything else came apart with diligent, sustained effort sans puzzlement. I LOVE old MoPars for this very reason: FUNCTIONAL ELEGANT SIMPLICITY!

12/29/2017 A. D.

Work commenced in earnest Friday afternoon after an abortive start Thursday which I cut short when I had to use a 7 foot cheater pipe on my 1/"2 drive breaker bar to simply "unwind" the torsion bar to relaxation. So I copped a moderate air compressor from Orange-Vested-Hardware Walmart, complete with a spare 300 ft-lb impact wrench to expedite this and similar tasks. It was barely worth it. I HAD a remarkably similar Central Pneumatic impact wrench, identical to that used in the following article:
Rebuilding Front Suspensions With PST - Mopar Muscle Magazine

Now, SURELY if such sublime Pros that authored such illuminating, unbiased Autojournalism at Hotrod Network can just blithely "unwind" the jack screws on a dilapidated old A body in a state VERY similar to Tilly with the very same impact wrench as I happened to have, and another identical to them in all but label, then I would have NO further trouble, right? ... Right? .... (chirp chirp chirp, snicker, snicker chuckle GUFFAW HAW! HAW! HAW!!!!!.....)

Woe. alas, alackaday! NO! Even after spending my last cent in credit on a 3/8" spec compressor hose after the **** East Asian Techno-wonder I got with the Central Pneumoniac busted the first time I put pressure on it, I still only got the first INCH and a quarter of that jack screw down before both impact wrenches at their 300-ft-lb nominal spec went on strike. So I doggedly resorted to my breaker bar and a more modest 4 ' jackhandle for extra torque for the next few hours, until the torsion bar was utterly relaxed. I removed the tire, brake drum, hub, backing plate (brake assembly intact) hung the said plate off some tie wire from the top of the fender well to assure that the hose wouldn't be strained, then picked up my tools and called it a night, just 'ere midnight MST.

EVERY BOLT securing that backing plate to the lower ball joint and spindle assembly required liberal amounts of WD-40 "Blue Torch" grade penetrant and my cheater bar on the breaker. I noted how every castle nut matched, and how all the cotter pins were still present. This MIGHT suggest simply good work when Mathilda was last serviced, but that much uniformity combined with the STRONG chemical/metallic bonds on every mated surface also suggests that Tilly may well have gone all the 53 years since she was first bolted together without ever having had the front end worked over. The much vaunted pickle fork proved worthless on the ball joints and all but ONE steering link. Here I was blessed in that the one link the pickle fork could pry apart was the one that mattered; linking the tie rods to the steering gear box. I left the rest of the old junk linked together and likely will sell it to some barrio brat as exotic nunchuku.... The youth here like that sort of thing.

12/30/2017 A.D. 09:50 MST Well! NOW that I got that torsion bar as relaxed as I was back when I partook of certain Hawaiian imports more interesting than Dole pineapples, everything would be just easy as 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751... for SHORE, eh? Well, I girded my loins, bit a bullet, and took a FULL dose of my state subsidized heavy narcotics, in anticipation of the day's fun.

Having diligently marked and digitally imaged the state of the upper control arm camber bolts, it was time to start the new day right.
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The upper ball joint had other ideas. I had resorted the night before to using my trusty $19.95 Chinese wonder from Container Ship Potmetal to grind through the lower part of the old, BADLY WORN upper ball joint when the pickle fork failed to break anything beyond the crumbling rubber boot around the ball-joint socket.

To Be Continued.... 01/01/2018 A. D. 01:12:20
 
Last edited:
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Nice Low Budget torsion bar tool cut from HARD old oak planks from the local forklift skid recycler. They give away the hardwood boards when full of nails. I take them. Nails don't much bug me when working with oak.

Short Note, 01/02/2018 00:59

Note the pitiful state of the control arm when I started today with some good steel made for cutting good steel. Chinese potmetal did that, despite my best effort with my hammers Sunday.
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Bought some GOOD American Steel Mayhew cold chisels @ Oh Really? this afternoon. Got home and cut out that outer shell of the lower control arm bushing, more or less as Ma Par instructed. It still took near 5 hours of steady banging on my new chisels, but at least they actually CUT. Results shown next:

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Improvised a sanding drum after the extraction, polished the inner surface of the lower control arm to a nice shine, eliminating all burs raised from chiseling apart the thick old potmetal casing for the old bushing.
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I then improvised a sturdy press from 1/2" x 20 all-thread with 15/16" hex nuts and fender washers and pressed the new bushing in with relative ease.

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Anyway, the FIRST new part is now pressed into place; the lower control arm bushing. REASSEMBLY HAS COMMENCED!
 
Nice work. I spent a lot less time cleaning up the bushing bore on my lca’s. I mean I cleaned them and took a file to any high spots I may have caused with the chisel but otherwise figured the tighter the fit, the better.
 
View attachment 159959
Nice Low Budget torsion bar tool cut from HARD old oak planks from the local forklift skid recycler. They give away the hardwood boards when full of nails. I take them. Nails don't much bug me when working with oak.

Short Note, 01/02/2018 00:59

Note the pitiful state of the control arm when I started today with some good steel made for cutting good steel. Chinese potmetal did that, despite my best effort with my hammers Sunday.
View attachment 159960


Bought some GOOD American Steel Mayhew cold chisels @ Oh Really? this afternoon. Got home and cut out that outer shell of the lower control arm bushing, more or less as Ma Par instructed. It still took near 5 hours of steady banging on my new chisels, but at least they actually CUT. Results shown next:

View attachment 159961

Improvised a sanding drum after the extraction, polished the inner surface of the lower control arm to a nice shine, eliminating all burs raised from chiseling apart the thick old potmetal casing for the old bushing.
View attachment 159962

View attachment 159963
View attachment 159964
I then improvised a sturdy press from 1/2" x 20 all-thread with 15/16" hex nuts and fender washers and pressed the new bushing in with relative ease.

View attachment 159965 View attachment 159966

Anyway, the FIRST new part is now pressed into place; the lower control arm bushing. REASSEMBLY HAS COMMENCED!

Very impressed with your ingenuity and tenacity, but isn't there an easier way to do this? Seems like you could take the LCA to a shop that has a press and get them to remove and re-install the bushings for you. Or is that not a good way to go?
 
Thanks for the pictures!
Just an FYI, the hose fittings on an air line are usually the most restriction.
If you go to the larger fittings, your impact gun will be much stronger.
Good luck with your project!
 
Very impressed with your ingenuity and tenacity, but isn't there an easier way to do this? Seems like you could take the LCA to a shop that has a press and get them to remove and re-install the bushings for you. Or is that not a good way to go?
Machine shops take $$$. I have less than $5 to my name as of this morning. SURE, I would LIKE to hire a shop to do the grunt work, but even if I had the bread, I likely would do this crap myself unless I were sufficiently busy to warrant the expense. When I worked as an engineer for Raytheon, I hired shops. Now, I engineer my own tools, and application of them. I DO get the utter satisfaction of KNOWING the job was done right thus. THIS is WHY I OWN a pre-1967 MoPar. They're SIMPLE, RUGGED and were DESIGNED RIGHT the first time; so I can work on them. I run Slackware GNU/Linux for an identical reason, I CAN SEE THE ENTIRE SYSTEM AND MODIFY IT EXACTLY TO MY OWN WISHES. We're a Poor Folks' Technophile Family and the vast majority of the barrio inhabitants love us for it.

For what its worth, Cost Less Auto, just about 3 miles north of me has an excellent machine shop and VERY REASONABLE rates. This time last year, when I had to have the rear axle bearings pressed on, I used them. South Side Tucson hosts a number of highly talented mechanical artists devoted to working on Detroit's Golden Age (1946-66) vehicles. These barrios provide plenty business for folks skilled in the Old School rides.
 
Thanks for the pictures!
Just an FYI, the hose fittings on an air line are usually the most restriction.
If you go to the larger fittings, your impact gun will be much stronger.
Good luck with your project!

Thanks for the tip on the 3/8" hose fittings. Think I'll dig up some change and get some. I know you're totally right on this.
 
Nice work. I spent a lot less time cleaning up the bushing bore on my lca’s. I mean I cleaned them and took a file to any high spots I may have caused with the chisel but otherwise figured the tighter the fit, the better.

So long as it isn't SO tight as to prevent one's successful pressing the fitting in. Mindful down to my very bones of how difficult it could be if I screwed up the press job, I wanted to make DAMNED SURE that bushing went STRAIGHT in. Deo gratias et gratias a Sanctus Ioseph (patron of mechanics among many other needful types), it DID. Also, I figured a power tool solution would give me desired results with no more time invested in the procedure. I'm actually quite the miser when cost/benefit calculations are done. We get no guaranteed income down here, so Thrift is Virtue.
 
ALL DONE! I'll now update you all with a photo essay from start to finish, duly commented.

First, some Words on the "Right Tools" ....

When breaking apart an aged suspension system, two basic tools emerge as the utmost necessities; HAMMER AND LEVER. I spent a couple solid days HAMMERING, first on a pickle fork, which I got marginal use from, then on some GOOD CHISELS, which I bought from Oh Really? Auto Partz. The MayHew American made STEEL chisels saved this project. USE ONLY TOP GRADE STEEL TOOLS ON YOUR MOPAR FOLKS! I admit some of the 1/2" drive sockets I employ are sino-slag, and they will be replaced as they break. I thank the Knights of Columbus, St. Vincent de Paul and other charitable organs in the Diocese of Tucson for making 50+ year old AMERICAN STEEL TOOLS available to me for next to nothing. Kent's Tools (Kent's Tools) provided most of the rest, at excellent prices. SOME tools were NOT of great use to start with.

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The pricey 1 59/64" upper ball joint socket and 3/4" drive handle proved UTTERLY USELESS for REMOVING the upper ball joint, just as the pickle fork did for separating it. HOW did I get the thing out then?

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Pipe wrench plus 4 ft cheater (fence post) handle! I used my conduit bender with its 3 ft 3/4" rigid handle to hold the upper control arm in place while I torqued that fast stuck remnant out. Be SURE to have a big pipe wrench handy for that ball joint when removing it. Now, BACK to separation.

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That's right, a $19.95 sino-trash body grinder from Container Ship Slop Toolz did very nicely for cutting the upper ball joint stud OUT of the socket. I had noticed the thing getting RELATIVELY loose in the socket to start with, which was ONE of the decisive data compelling me to do this job. Having bought these parts starting in April, 2016, scarcely 1 month after buying Tilly on St. Patrick's Day, then topping up my list as recently as this Fall, I had my eye on rebuilding the front end all along. I hope to do the passenger side within the month, and with Heaven's help, pray it won't take the 6 12.5 hr days it did to do the driver side. I LEARNED PLENTY about this work from doing this job, and thank folks on this Forum for contributing to my body of lore before I commenced.
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We will keep hammers and levers in mind, and add the tried and true spiral inclined plane known mostly as the screw to the list of Right Tools, having witnessed it in action on the upper ball joint, which is threaded for insertion into and removal from the upper control arm. Many folks tout the use of pickle forks for separating all manner of ball and socket joints in automotive suspension. I only enjoyed success with it when prying apart the tie rod connector at the steering gear arm, which is the only place such a method really is warranted. I cut into the socket on the upper
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joint with the body grinder; facilitating removal of the ball and stud which I then removed from the spindle by some judicious use of hammer and drift after removing the cotter pin and castle nut. The same procedure availed on the lower ball joint, still attached to the link rod, as aforementioned.

The cheap body grinder also availed to ameliorate the ardors of chiseling, as can be seen below where removing the inner sleeve of the LCA bushing stuck fast to the LCA shaft, which in turn wouldn't budge from the crossmember. I found no need for it to either, and happily left it in place, given my lack of torque wrench capable of measuring the 180 ft-lbs the FSM calls for on the nut in front of the square washer on the front of the crossmember. The LCA slid off easily, given the advanced decay of the rubber in the old bushing. But the SLEEVES were another matter.
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So I CAREFULLY scored the sleeve with my grinder, as can be seen, then commenced chiseling, to good effect sans any damage to the shaft.
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Re-assembly flowed pretty smoothly, as predicted by myself and one or two worthies on the Forum. The upper ball joint proved to be ABSURDLY EASY to screw in after I carefully brushed the threads on the LCA clean with a small rotating wire brush. The Moog bushing screwed in 90% of the way by hand. The crucial last 10% required use of my special socket with the cheater bar to give it the 125 ft-lbs specified in the FSM
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I used the same setup as for removing the old upper ball joint. If I live to work over the front end again, I plan to get tubular control arms for both upper and lower, IFF the metal is measurably better than by then 60+ yr old Detroit stamped sheet-steel. I understand Mustang II LCAs bolt right up, just as the disk brake apparatus is supposed to. I'll check PST and Hotchkiss out also.

NOW the LAST BUSHING stuff; the upper control arm. HERE is where I got my money's worth out of the upper ball joint 1 59/64" socket; making a press for those upper bushings.
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This last minute improvised press worked beautifully, but ONLY because I horde electrical hardware for use at the homestead.
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That is a genuine 1 1/2" locknut I got off an offset nipple I cadged off a tear-out 4 yrs ago. I cut a notch into it to expedite popping it around the rubber behind the shield on the outside face of the bushing, both protecting the rubber AND allowing the ball joint socket to press evenly down onto the inner lip, which is what you WANT. the back or inner cup of the press originally was going to be an 1 1/4" socket, but it proved too short, so I
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cut the coupling bell off some SCH 40 PVC conduit, NOT the regular pipe, can using a LONG 3/8" bolt used to secure a Saginaw power steering pump to a 400 block, was able to stack several fender washers between the head and nut on each end of the bolt and using torque on my spiral inclined plane, press both upper bushings home. Again, sanding the inner collars of the control arm free of any burrs, rust or primer from the primer job I sprayed on the rest of the UCA, helped insure that the bushings went in straight and true. The SCH 40 PVC showed no sign of strain either, unlike the sino-potmetal fender washers which were ruined by the second use. Oh well! A bit of light oil on the bolt and nut helps here too. I abstained from using it on the bushings, as the FSM explicitly advises against it.
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The UCA installed easily enough with a little persuasion from a pry bar to ease the new bushings into the slots. Everything bolted up fine, and having thoroughly cleaned and oiled the jack screw and nut, I WAS able to use my impact wrench to set the ride height exactly even with the passenger side. The cambered bolts were set back to their original marks, as was the new tie rod set to the same number of threads as the old. Consequently, the car proved completely un-driveable when I tried it out the first time! NOT a complete surprise, given how bad the old rubber was, I guess somebody had maladjusted things to accomodate its deteriorating state. So, I had to do a crash course in wheel alignment...

So I read the relevant portion of the FSM, then got out my big level, some string, tie wire, and a couple lightweight rods.
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Sure enough, with new stuff on the driver side set to the old marks, the back extreme of the tires was 73", while the front was but 71"! So Mathilda was PIGEON-TOED just after her surgery. So, I cranked the tie rods IN nearly all the way, leaving 1 1/2 turns of thread out on each of them (they were NOT symmetrical previously!) and fine tuned the cambered bolts up top and got Tilly in a BETTER driving state than she has been in since we bought her! SUCCESS, and I've spent not a CENT on hiring outside help, DEO GRATIAS!

After I do the passenger side, God-willing this month, we will take Tilly to an alignment shop if she needs it. I plan to spend my spare time, what little there is, studying wheel alignment on C body, as well as A & B body MoPars from the Golden Age.
 
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Nice work, I like the way you work. I used many similar methods on my Imp but it came apart much easier than yours it seems.
 
Nice work, I like the way you work. I used many similar methods on my Imp but it came apart much easier than yours it seems.

I estimate from the state of the rubber and rust on Tilly she had worn those old bushings and joints ~ 30 yrs. That made for hard going, even with lubricants and pre-cleaning as much exposed threaded area as possible. I KNOW somebody worked over the front before moi, as there is a clever bead tacked to the sheetmetal where the guide for the back cambered bolt on the driver side goes. When I first saw it, my reaction was "I'll grind this ugly mess off..." until I realized WHY it was there!

I'm a minimalist in theory and practice. I try doing jobs right with proper planning, and avoid needless effort when I find it to really be needless. The old boys who composed the FSM did a surprisingly good job on that note, when allowing for the assumption that one is a Chrysler shop mechanic with access to a host of tools which long ago have either rusted to powder or are in some horde. (Saw a chest full of them for sale in Maricopa Co this past summer.)

I hope to knock out the passenger side within a month. Knowing just what to do, and having rounded up everything I need should save me several days of effort, but its still going to be tough and tedious. MANY THANKS Matt.
 
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