Beware, this is long......
For those interested,
This relates to my post of earlier this week
asking for advice on upper a-arm removal.
Well, its quite easy. With car up on stands,
just give the upper ball joint a few
good whacks with a pickle fork, and out
she comes. Then a good shot of PB Blaster on
the two fine thread 7/16s bolts, and out they come.
Some observations: The A arms must have been put in
before the body went on, originally. In order to
get them out, you have to whack the pivot arm part
between the upper shock mount tower and the
lower inner fender welded lip. This bends the inner
fender lip welded seam
upward a bit. It is also necessary to unbolt the
shock at the top and push the threaded part down
even with the tower. I suppose if you had a lot
more time and patience than I have, you could
dis-assemble the shock tower instead of employing
the two pound ball peen hammer.
There is about 1/4 inch worth of shims on my car
which should impart significant negative
camber, so I am not adding any more shims.
Trouble is, dosnt look like much neg camber.
I am now thinking there is some significant
toe out, or other issues related to the old
loose upper arm bushings, that make it look
like not much neg camber. There is measurable
wear on my new Falkens after only one auto-x
and a few hundred miles on the street, and its
scrubbing wear on the inside....
Best thing I can think of is to go get it
professionally aligned ASAP, after I get the
new arms in. I dont want to fool around with
the string and tape measure home brew method.
I stop at the hardware store tonight to get
4 new grade 5 bolts and lockwashers.
After many replies about what hardware to use,
this is the best choice for me, balancing
safty, availability, and expeditious procurement.
If I new these darn things were bad more than
a few days before an auto-X, I would have ordered and
put in cool new urethane boots, but as it is,
I am putting in the best
two ancient rubber boots out of the four that I have
to protect the ball joint grease area.
The ball joints on the old arms are in fine shape.
I can only figure that some P.O. didnt grease the
car for a long time, or greased the ball joints but
not the a-arms.
I remember shaking these arms
about once a year during my pre-flight safty check
and tuneup in the spring, and they were always
tight. I cant understand how they went south so
fast....oh well.
Last but not least, the original bolts, or at least
the ones that were in there, have no strengh markings
at all, and were not too tight, and I know I took a
turn on them in the spring. This indicates the
possiblity of stress elongation. I strongly recommend
anyone who drives aggressively at all to take a look
at these bolts as part of a regular maintenance program.
Hope this helps someone out there!
Jim
Chesapeake Va
67 pushrod 2L 5spd
72 510 sportwagon
71 510 partswagon
_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
/// datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net mailing list
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|