My Suspension Rebuild Pics

[dgs]

For anyone that's interested, I've started a gallery of pictures detailing my fun with rebuilding the suspension on my '60.

So far, I've gotten all the major parts out of the car. Next step is removing the ball joints from the A arms and the tie rod ends.

Then I've got a couple of 'as long as it's up in the air' projects. The power steering leaks a lot, so I think I might rebuild the cylinder and replace the hoses. I also noticed a soft plug leaking and I think I identified the major oil leak as the front main seal. Not sure if I'll tackle all that or not.

Anyway, follow along if you'd like in my suspension rebuild galley. You can also check out my other galleries, including pics of my car, pics from the yearly Good Guys hot rod shows, pics from the North American International Auto Show in Detroit and more pictures of other T'birds. The main gallery page is here.

[dgs]

Just put a bunch more pics up (about 30 or so). Sorry it's been so long to update the gallery. Got some pics of the PS control valve disassembled.

I scaled back my plans a bit. Not rebuilding the PS cylinder or replacing the front main seal. Projects for another day. I decided not to clean and paint the control arms and such. I'll one day paint the drums, but for now I'm just trying to get my garage back before the snow flies.

As soon as that ball stud sleeve arrives, hopefully I'll get this thing together. Right now, the passenger side is done, the driver's has the upper arm in. With any luck, this weekend it'll be done. (Ha! )

[Alexander]

Those are great pictures and descriptions. I would like to have permission to use some of those pictures on the main site - I will give you credit.

I am surprised that you did not strip and paint the control arms while you had it apart. It only would have taken a few more hours. I used Eastwood semigloss Chassis Black paint on the recent job on my Golde Top. It holds up well. I used it on my '59 over ten years ago. Thousands of miles, sometimes in downpours. Still looks good.

Did you have a metal ring spacer under the upper rubber insulator? Did you find traces of paint on the springs? When I brushed my springs with a metal brush, I found a yellow stripe on my springs. I imagine the convertibles would have a different color due to their weight difference.

[dgs]

You can use the pictures, no problem. I can send you the full resolution shots if you want. Let me know. I would like to put my 'salguod.net ' watermark on the last set before you do. I forgot to add it when I uploaded the last bunch.

I saw your spring pic earlier and then was looking at the specs page in the service manual. There are two springs listed, one is 15.75" tall and one 15.50" tall, I think. (I'm at work so this is from memory.) The one is marked with a yellow stripe, the other a purple. I already had the one in the car, so I couldn't really check it. I'll check the other this weekend.

I was going to clean and paint everything, but other non-T'bird projects kept pushing completion of this back until I was up against the wall with cold weather. The car's a driver, not a show car, so I'm not concerned that the grimy bits are, well, grimy. It will not see much rain either, especially with the top as is and with windows that don't function.

The other thing for me was where do you stop? I noticed you didn't paint your spindles, backing plates or drums. I was going to do all of that when I was thinking of painting. That meant taking the brakes off of the spindle, which I didn't do. It's the "as long as I'm under here" slippery slope.

I'll just be pleased as punch to have a car that doesn't wallow and wander all over the place when I'm on the freeway. I do want to paint the drums since they're so visible with those big wheels, but that can be done with the thing together in the spring.

Oh, and no, I did not have a metal spacer under the isolator.

[Alexander]

On my '59 Hard Top I did everything piecemeal. I will eventually paint the drums and detail the chassis on the Golde Top.

It's great to have a Squarebird with a new tight suspension.

I will wait until you watermark the pictures before I use them on the site.

[FeFranco]

DGS
In picture 67 you said that you had to remove the bumper to reinstall the coil spring. I had to compress the $h!+ out of my coil to install that bumper. I believe that the upper arm ALWAYS rides on that bumper. Are you going to leave it out?

[dgs]

Alexander - watermarks are done, take what you want.

Hmm, I had hoped that once assembled everything and got the car back on its wheels I'd have clearance to put that bumper in. Maybe not. The bumper was basically missing before (see picture 40) so not having it is no worse than it was ...

Not much consolation I guess.

So, how did you compress the suspension enough to get it in? If you look at that picture, the weight of the car is on the lower arm (and therefore the spring) through the floor jack. There's about an inch of air over the jack stand. I pulled down on the upper arm, but wasn't able to compress it enough. I was a little nervous with the arrangement and wanted it buttoned up quickly.

I'd be surprised if the upper arm was resting on the bumper full time. It just doesn't seem like a good arrangement. The suspension should collapse more when supported on the wheels as the weight will be at the end of the lower control arm rather than under the spring, which is closer to the pivot. At least I think so, we'll see.

[FeFranco]

Mine looked like #40 also. I used the spring compressor like yours in #66. I had as much bite possible to compress the spring so I can get that bumper in there. I think its neccesary for rebounding bounce. It was a lot of work to squeeze it in. Let us know if it causes any problems.

[bcomo]

Doug and Franco:

I checked my 60 upper control arms this morning. The holes for the upper bumper bolts are there but there are no bumpers.

I know that the ball joints were replaced, since they have nuts, not rivets. It might be that whoever did that ran into the same problem as you both did trying to get the bottom control arm in place.

Interestingly, there's enough room for my hand to move around in there, so it would seem that the bumper could fit -- then again, real world mechanics is different.

Later:

I jacked my car up by the front frame and can see one reason why the bumpers need to be there.

Without the bumpers, the upper arm moves down so far that it sits on the frame rather than off of the frame. By moving so far down, the upper control arm makes such an angle with the upper ball joint that the front edge of the arm cuts into the upper ball joint boot. On mine, both boots are torn up because of this, as I carefully watched the wheel come down.

This may also put more of a strain on the upper ball joint when the car is jacked up, since the spindle is pulling at the ball joint socket at a greater angle. You might look and see what you think.

[dgs]

Sounds just like mine. I attempted to get the bumper in after I had the ball joints buttoned up. I got it under the arm, but couldn't get it turned so that the stud would go in the hole. Sounds like once the car is on the ground I might be able to do it. I might try putting my floor jack under the end of the lower control arm. Hard to do, though, without damaging the grease fitting for the lower ball joint.

[bcomo]

I measured the space inside from the hole to where the bumper will hit. With a 430 sitting on the tires, the distance is 2 3/4".

Can you tell me, what is the total height of the bumper including the stud that you have?

Is is possible to trim some rubber off of the bumper with a dremel just to make the turn in? Better than no bumper at all.

By the way, there's enough room to get my arm and hand up there with the tires on the ground -- not jacked.

[dgs]

It's about 2 3/4" long overall, the stud being about 7/8" of that. So it ought to go in and sit about 7/8" above the frame at rest. i bet it was designed to be assembled that way.

I took some more pics, hopefully I'll post them before the night is through. I do have a yellow stripe on my spring, it's quite evident, I'm not sure how I missed it. It's mostly gone where the spring was exposed, but very clear where the spring was up in the frame pocket.

I also checked the service manual and page 8-16 showing the specs for the suspension does list two springs. The yellow marking like mine and Alexander's should be 15 3/4" tall, the purple marking should be 15 1/2" tall. I wonder why there were two different ones. I'd like to have a set of the purple ones and lower the front of my car 1/4".

Lastly, I ended up not using the ball stud sleeve from Mac's. It was not the right part. The picture on their web site was obviously different than mine, but I had hoped it was either the wrong picture or that it was different but still would work. It slid into the control valve sleeve just fine, but the opening wasn't large enough to allow the ball stud to pivot up out of the sleeve (see the shop manual, page 9-16, figure 13), so there was no way to assemble it. I have a picture of the two side by side and they clearly aren't the same.

[bcomo]

I just thought of something. If you jack the car up on the front driver side only you can get more weight on the passerger side tire; which should raise the upper control arm. Then, you might have enough room to turn the bumper. Let me know if you try that.

If that doesn't work, I personally would cut the rubber tip until it fit. I wouldn't want to take it apart to get it in there -- I don't think.

According to the Factory Specs book -- the Yellow spring was the original for the 352. If the springs needed to be replaced, for some reason, they show the replacement spring as the Purple spring, which is the spring for the 430.

The purple spring is shorter BUT thicker metal (.710), so that spring wouldn't go down as much as the yellow spring. In effect, the car might not sit any lower with purple springs than with yellow springs.

Sorry about the ball stud sleeve. I see what you mean from the manual. I've never had one on my hand, so I wouldn't have caught that.

[dgs]

Based on your measurements, I should be able to install it without doing that. That's not a bad idea, though, if needed.

I bet that replacement spec is so that they didn't have to make and stock two sets of springs for replacements.

There was no way I could have known that ball stud sleeve wouldn't work until I actually tried it myself. Vendors list 2 different control valves for the 58-59 and the 60, maybe the 58-59 uses that ball stud sleeve.