Good news - The front end is completely disassembled.
All went well until I started to remove the lower fulcrum pin steel
bushings and realized there were none there.
Going back to the book there are none in my factory service manual for the
TR2 - steel bushings must have been a later addition.
I had to unbolt the steering gearbox and move it slightly to get the arm
off the pin - and it looked like whomever did the front end rebush back in
the 70's could not figure out how to remove it and left the old rubber in
place on both sides.
I took my media blaster (in a garbage bag) and gave them a good shot to
assess condition and both look good with the exception that both fronts
(with the very old rotted rubber bushes) have some wear spots where the arm
was riding on them - not excessive but I can feel a slight
smooth transition with my fingers.
I feel confident that the pins are structurally sound. The steel bush
supplied with my rebush kit fits over these but I feel some movement -
about the same amount of slop I feel when I insert the metal bush into the
plastic bush (I have no idea why this is not a tighter fit - but I
digress).
Since the Steel bush is not intended to rotate - I can put them on as is
or..... I am thinking of putting JB weld or devcon steel on the pins
before I slide steel bushes on (coating the inside of the steel bush with
paste wax as a release agent) I'd tighten up the nuts to hold the pins in
correct orientation and remove the nuts after the JB weld has
set sufficiently - (but not set enough to bond the nuts in case there is
any seepage).
Good idea or Bad idea - compressive strength of JB weld is over 10k psi and
Temp to remove is 600 degrees or so and at that temp the plastic bushings
would start to have an issue...
BTW - there is a funny video (to me anyway) on youtube where a guy jb welds
his suspension before taking it out on the track.
http://youtu.be/HpKOGaFqAuQ Totally different than my application but
people do crazy things. Watch it with your sound turned off as the language
will be offensive to some.
Thanks Chris
** triumphs@autox.team.net **
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