Front Suspension

Front Suspension Rebuild

*click on any picture for a full sized image*

For the past few years the front suspension had become increasingly loose until last year when I started hearing some clattering in the front end when driving on uneven pavement. A close look at the front suspension revealed what 20 years will do to a set of rubber bushings. They were worn, cracked and loose. Time for replacement. I considered replacing them with nylatron bushings but ultimately decided to go with standard rubber bushings again in the hope of maintaining ride quality. If that turns out to be a bad decision...I'll just replace them again in a few years.

I had a full set of suspension bits in the garage left over from the donor car that I used in the original restoration. So, the plan for the front suspension was as follows:

• Clean up the spare set if A-arms in the media cabinet

• Paint the A-arms with Bill Hirsch Miracle paint

• Strip off the old suspension parts from the car

• Replace the old parts with the refurbished parts along with new bushings

• Clean and repack the wheel bearings

The old parts from the donor car were pretty ugly when I dug them out of the corner in the garage but the media cabinet made pretty short work of them.

With the parts all cleaned up, they were given a coat of Black Miracle paint from Bill Hirsch. The paint, though very messy to work with, has excellent adhesion, is impervious to most chemicals (including brake fluid) and held up beautifully on the parts I painted with it 20 years ago when the car was originally restored. With all parts painted I now had a full set if suspension parts all ready to go on the car.

Pulling the old suspension off the car was a pretty straightforward task with the only tricky part being decompressing the spring. This was accomplished by fabricating a spring decompression tool from threaded rod, washers and a plate as specified on Bob Danielson's site (http://www.tr6.danielsonfamily.org/Files/SpringCompressor.PDF). Using that tool even the spring removal was easy.

Reassembly was simply the reverse of taking everything apart. All new grade 8 nyloc nuts and washers were used. The shocks are only a couple years old so I reused them. The ball joints, tie-rod ends and trunions were replaced during the original restoration and looked to still be in great shape so they were reused as well.

Overall I'm very pleased with the results. The steering is once again very tight and, after being professionally aligned, the car tracks very straight and true. It transformed the way the car feels on the road.