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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
This last minute improvised press worked beautifully, but ONLY because I horde electrical hardware for use at the homestead.
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
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.
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.
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.