Last night I installed new a-arm bushings in the driver's side of my son's
79 MGB. I'm planing on doing the passenger side tomorrow morning.
I don't have a spring compressor so I used my floor jack under the spring
pan to get the spring tension released. This is a real chore. The problem
I found is that the A-arm is hanging at an angle downward, but the jack sits
level on the floor. The two front bolts, actually one bolt and the sway bar
link, came out fairly easy. The problem is the two inner bolts. As you try
to raise the spring pan to relieve tension on the bolts, the whole car
raises. No problem I figure, I'll use a punch to drive them out. Well the
rear inner bolt wasn't much problem. I used a big screwdriver to help align
the hole some then knocked the bolt out. The front bolt however was a
different story. I had a lot of trouble aligning the holes (read couldn't
get the holes close) so I decided to just knock the bolt out, I've got spare
bolts! Everything was going fine until the bolt finally cleared the a-arm.
Well if it was shot from a gun it couldn't have flown harder. Luckily for
me, it went in the opposite direction I was in. The rest of the disassembly
was uneventful. I installed the new V8 bushings and now we come to
reassembly.
I'm very concerned about getting the spring pan back in since I had so much
trouble getting it out. I get the arms assembled with out fully tightening
the assembly, now for the spring pan. I jacked it up and got the two front
bolts with out too much trouble. I put the link in first then used the
hammer to align the outer rear hole. Now I'm faced with aligning the two
inner holes. I have a large C-clamp that I used on the inner rear corner to
hold the plate in place. I then lowered the jack and positioned it on the
inner side of the spring tray. Unfortunately I couldn't get it jack in the
location I wanted because the jack stand was in the way. Well I jacked it
back up until the car just lifted off the jack stand. I was very concerned
about lifting the whole car since all 4 tires are off and it's sitting on 4
jack stands. Well the holes still didn't align, but they were getting
closer. Time for the big screwdriver. With a lot of grunting and a few
choice four letter words the rear hole finally aligned and the screw was in.
Now for the front hole. Again, a lot more grunting, more four letter words,
more grunting and it finally went through, the hard part was done. Time for
a beer.
Now to finish, I get under and tighten the A-arm nuts, now just got to put
the cotter pins in and everything is set. Wrong! I couldn't get the cotter
pin through the forward nut on the inner side of the a-arm. No matter how
much I tightened it, I just couldn't get it on far enough to get the pin
through. I had visions of having to disassemble the whole thing again. (By
now the better half is coming out about every 15 minutes to inform me of the
time, wanting to eat dinner. I keep telling her I'm almost done.) Take a
beer break to think about the problem The rear nut went on just fine, no
problem installing the cotter pin. I start to look closer and for some
reason the nuts appear different. The one on the front appears thicker than
the one on the back. How can this be, then I think about the nut on the
outside end of the A-arm at the bottom of the king pin. I remove the nut
from the bottom of the king pin and low and behold, they are different. The
thread size is the same, but the nuts on the inner end of the A-arms are
thinner than the nut holding the outer end of the A-arm. I switched the
nuts, and everything worked fine.
Now I have the other side to contend with tomorrow morning. Does anyone
have any secrets about removing and installing the spring pans with a jack?
Also, after I finish the passenger side suspension, I'm going to rebuild the
calipers and rear brake cylinders. Any advice for the brakes?
The last time I did this, suspension and brake calipers, was about 10 years
ago on a 1970 MGB. This is bringing back memories.
Any advise is appreciated.
Ken Waringa
|