I'm re-commencing re-assembly of my '3 front suspension, after
ruining a shiny new trunnion last week. I got everything together on
the passenger side, fits well, good movement, etc, and was feeling
pretty good. Went to hook the upper ball joint into the vertical
link, and realized it was a no-go. They parts simply don't line up.
The ball joint stud is 1/4" back (in relation to length of car) of
the hole in the vertical link.
The driver's side does not have this problem, though it does not have
the spring and spring pan in yet (passenger side does). After much
examination of the problem, I realized that my pass. side
shock/spring tower may be twisted. The distance between the upper
fulcrum pins is 24" on the back side and 24 1/8" on the front side -
the pins don't appear to be bent. The lower a-arm pins are
equidistant. Also, the top of the two spring towers are the same
distance from the rear shock mounts, so it hasn't been pushed back,
just twisted.
I'm a little bummed. Prior to sandblasting and powdercoating the
frame, I set the frame out and checked quite a number of measurements
to see if it was straight. That's one I just didn't check!
Eyeballing everything, I can convince myself that, yes, the spring
tower looks like it got a good whack and has twisted just a bit.
This might explain a crease in the sheet metal at the front lower
corner of the inner fender, as well as why the suspension bushings
were so shot when I took it apart (this and the PO had the upper
a-arms paired wrong and it being 44 years old).
So ... what to do? If I take it to a frame shop, is this something
that can reasonably be straightened? What would they do? How much
might it cost?
One other option I can see is fudging the upper bushings just a bit
to realign the upper a-arms. I've got poly bushings, and if I sand
or cut a bit off the rear inner and front outer bushings, as well as
using a spacer washer on the front inner between bushing and fulcrum
pin, it seems that would move the ball joint toward the front of the
car enough that things would line up again. The ball joint would
still be moving in a slightly different plane, though.
Advice appreciated.
Dan
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Dan Buettner mailto:danb@thelittlemacshop.com
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