Rear Suspension

Rear Suspension Rebuild

*click on any picture for a full sized image*

20 years ago when I first restored the car I painted the trailing arms gloss black thinking that's the way they were supposed to be. I soon found out that they were supposed to be left bare aluminum and its always bugged me that they were wrong. After 20 years, the shocks were misbehaving a bit, the U-Joints were getting old and the bushings in the TAs themselves were wearing so I decided now was the time for a full rebuild.

My plan was as follows:

• • Clean up a pair of spare TAs that I had

  • Send a spare set of shocks I had out for a rebuild at Apple Hydraulics

  • Purchase a set of Richard Good's adjustable TA mounts

  • Purchase a set of Richard Good's updated hubs

  • Refurbish a spare set of half-shafts I had in the garage

  • Pull out the old suspension

  • Bolt in the new stuff

It obviously wasn't as straightforward as that sounds but the idea was sound nonetheless.

First step was to clean up my spare set of TAs in the media cabinet. I used black beauty in the cabinet and pretty quickly had a set of TAs that looked shiny and new. After they were cleaned up I painted them with 3 coats of clear coat in a rattle can.

Once the TAs were all cleaned up and clear coated I used Rick Patton's excellent jig to install Keenserts for the studs so that I should never have to worry about stripped threads in the soft aluminum again. This left me with one other chore on the TAs. Installing Richard Good's nylatron bushings. Installing the bushings was really just a matter of reading the directions and following them to a tee. I did find that trying to round out the hole for the boshings was quite a challenge. I ended up using an adjustable reamer to open up the hole in the bushing instead of trying to grind down the inside of the TA. This worked very well, was a quick and easy job and has been approved by Richard. I highly recommend going this route instead of the TA grinding route. With that all done the TAs were now ready for installation so it was on to refurbishing the half shafts.

First step in refurbishing the half-shafts was to clean them, remove all grease and grime and then media blast them to get them back to bare metal. I was very careful to cover the spines as well as the holes for the U-Joints so that those areas were protected from the abrasive dust from the media cabinet. Once the 4 pieces of the half shafts were cleaned up I gave them all a good coat of Black Miracle paint from Bill Hirsch. They looked good as new. ast step was to install new U-Joints and mount everything to the beautiful new hubs I purchased from Richard Good. The hubs are an awesome piece of work that I almost hated to cover up. Here's a couple pics of the process including the work I was doing on front suspension parts as well.

With the painting and prep work all done on the TAs and the half-shafts and the rebuilt shocks back from Apple, all the was needed was to drip off the old and install the new.

Here's what things looked like before disassembly and with everything stripped away:

Installing everything was an easy chore given that everything had been removed, cleaned, de-greased and painted. The adjustable mounts went on very easily, again just a matter of following Richard's instructions.

Here are a few pics of the re-assembly process.

Overall this was a pretty straightforward project. It took time and patience but there was nothing technically that difficult about it. There was, however, one hitch. After things were back together I took the car to a pro for a 4 wheel alignment and he found that the passenger rear wheel simply couldn't be aligned. Turns out that the spare TA I installed had been hit in an accident and was very slightly bent. As a result, I had to redo all the TA work on the passenger side with yet another TA that I dug up. AGain, not technically difficult, just more work.

The car rides great now, tracks straight and true and many of the nagging squeaks and rattles (from worn bushings) are gone.