Page Six: How's it Hanging? The Front Suspension

 


The rear suspension played me, made me think this suspension thing wouldn’t be so bad.  The rear was relatively rust free and didn’t fight me much, no seized bolts, no rusted-on nuts… The front suspension settled in for a siege.

Seized Nuts!

There’s a saying, any one-day project is one broken bolt from a three-day slog, in my case it was seized nuts (That’s what she said, yeah, I know, please forgive me).  I spent more than three solid hours wrangling the nuts off the shock shafts.  You know how this goes, you manage two or so turns of the nut before it seizes, and no amount of WD-40 could have prevented.  You round off the ridiculously inadequate little flats on the top of the shaft, now you can’t stop the shaft from turning, and you run through your favorite four-letter words.  You know, basic wrenching.

I had to bring some big artillery to the fight, but I eventually won!
Break out the vice-grips to lock down the shaft and used up all my grip strength.  That got me about another half turn, maybe.  I eventually brought my nut-splitter to the fight, and even then, I had to get two vice-grips on the shaft to keep the *$%#@ thing from turning.  Sixty years of rust will do that.  Next came the seized nuts on two of the four huge bolts that hold the front crossmember to the frame.  Impact wrench and breaker bar with a pipe extension, finally won that battle.  Nothing is easy, especially when you’re lying on the ground.  Yeah, but I won eventually, I think.

The steering linkage is coated with a clotty clumps of grease and dirt, hard as adobe.  Seems The Ramper’s previous steward greased the linkage joints liberally, which is great, don’t get me wrong, but a person could wipe off the excess is all I’m saying.  Whatever, it’s good because grease prevents rust, but getting it off is like an archeological dig.

Despite how their appearance, they were in decent shape.

Wobbly Tie Rod Ends

OK, “wobbly” may be too strong a word, but they are a bit loose.  Then again, there 63 years old.  One is bent slightly.  At any rate, The Ramper deserves some new tie rod ends.

On closer inspection, one of the tie rods is bent,
the one just above the straight edge.

Ball Joint Breaker

I bent my ball joint separator gizmo on one of the lower ball joints, I didn’t think that was possible, it’s a significant chunk of metal.  I got my torch and small sledge hammer after it, jeeze!

More evidence for the 55K miles on the odometer seems accurate – the ball joints are the original riveted ones.  They, like the rest of the front suspension, didn’t give up easily.  I sicced the angle grinder, the small sledge and a really hard punch on them, but it was a fight.

Battle of the A-arm Bushings

Next fight, the A-arm bushings, or rather the bushings’ outer sleeves.  The rubbery innards pressed out relatively easily because, you know, they are sixty years old and very tired.  The outer sleeves, however, required some creative hydraulic press gymnastics that would make Rube Goldberg proud, but it was bending the A-arms.  More desperate measures were needed.  In the end, I Sawzalled them and beat them out with a small sledge hammer and a selection of punches and chisels.  My little sledge earned his keep on The Ramper’s front suspension demolition.

Now for the cleaning with my vicious angle grinder/wire cup combo and bead blaster, some painting, probably some powder coating too and reassembly.  Some new grade 8 fasteners and Bob’s Your Uncle.

After the Beast had its way with them
(except for the brake backing plates, hadn't done those yet.

Oh, and during this test of wills, I noticed that the sheet metal behind the crossmember, at the base of the cab behind the seat is rusted through in several places.  I’ll have to weld in some patch panels before the front suspension can go back in.

These fit in my oven, so they're being powder coated,
which means they get bead blasted first.

This is what the powder looks like before it's baked

After baking - *shiny!*

"BLING"

Scrubbed Crossmember

I scrubbed the frame with the two-handed angle grinder and wire cup and used my portable sand blaster to get the rust out of the nooks and crannies.  I decided that POR-15 was the best paint for the job since I couldn’t remove the rust completely.  POR-15 is shiny black and tough even if the coat isn’t as smooth as spray paint.  At any rate, the crossmember is G2G (good to go).

The crossmember post beasting

POR-15 is an amazing paint even if it isn't as slick as spray paint.
To be fair, the front crossmember was rust pitted a bit.

So…

Crossmember, check, A-arms, powder coated and G2G; steering linkage, painted; steering box, cleaned, regreased and painted; brake backing plates, powder coated, G2G; brake lines, cleaned, sanded and painted… So why isn’t the front suspension back in?  Well,

1)    1) I have a huge parts order waiting – tie rod ends, bushings, seals, etc.

2)    2) I found many problems that must be fixed before the suspension goes back in, mainly the rust through spots I mentioned earlier, and

This the area above the gas tank and behind the seat on the inside.
Gonna need some patches.

Here's a spot behind the left wheel.
I cut it back to clean metal.  I'll make a patch and weld it in later.

3)    3) All restorers know this problem – Rabbit Holes.  Next post!

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