Thanks to all for their help. After almost 3 hours of standing on my hear
trying to drill out a broken bolt on the front rear spring mount bracket I can
report success. Bugsy now sports new rear spring mounting brackets, all new
bushing, all new hardware and I can't believe I'm driving the same car. I was
having trouble with the rear axle shifting on turns and in big bumps. Driving
was challenging to say the least. Found that the DPO had reassembled car with
wrong sized, too small bolts into spring mount bracket from inside car behind
seats. Over time this allowed mount to become loose and wear a V shaped groove
in the DS Spring Mount that was 3/4-1" long. Whole axle was shifting during
cornering, and at time felt like it was going to come around rear end first.
Here's some tips I learned from the almost 3 days trying to get Bugsy back
together.
1) Lots of Liquid Wrench on Spring Mount Brackets in advance.
2) 2 of the bolts cannot be reached from above with Liquid Wrench. Do not use
an Impact Wrench on these bolts. I spent 3 hours on my back drilling one of
these bastard out and retapping the hole. There is more than 1" of steel to
drill through and I don't want to ever do that again.
3) Use torch first on these bolts followed with long breaker bar. An impact
wrench turned up to full power will snap this bolt off.
4) Take Springs to spring shop to get bushings pressed out. They rust in place
and not something you can easily do at home.
5) It is possible to turn springs around backwards and they do not fit. One
side measures 17" to center the other 19".
6) New bushings can be removed not by pounding but by using a screwdriver at
the edge of the rolled spring edge and pry a little to open up the rolled edge.
Bushing fell right out.
7) A vise can be used to press in new bushings. Clean up inside of bushing hole
with Dremel Tool and Wire Brush before reassembly.
8) Spring mounts from VB are too wide on the captive nut side to install on a
'68 Sprite without grinding more than 3/8" off the side of the captive nut.
Easy to do but a PITA. Maybe they fit other year Spridgets but I doubt it.
9) A scissors jack from my old Honda positioned between brake drum and inside
of rear wheel well will move axle back and up while a floor jack under spring
will allow you to lift up and align everything. Loosening the shock bolts allow
lower plate to be aligned without taking off the nut from shock to spring arm.
10) I had spring shop rearch the DS Spring so at rest it stands 1" taller that
the PS spring. I can report that Bugsy's liberal tendencies have been reduced
to 1/2" as measured at the rear fenderwell from more that 1" before hand. Not
sure if springs will keep the rearching over time but visually Bugsy looks
better at rest.
All in all, a bastard of a job that would have been fairly easy if bolt had not
snapped off. Bugsy is happy, really happy and for the first time since he came
home on a flatbed in October 2 years ago I can say I've finally had a
satisfying Spridget experience.
Jim Gruber
Bugsy '68 Sprite (future Bugeye in disguise)
Dayton, OH
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