07.18.08
Rear Suspension
Well much has happened since my last post. On Fathers Day my mom fell and broke her hip. She had to have total hip replacement surgery followed by 20 days of physical therapy. Needless to say this shifted my priorities and since she lives with me, this slowed down the progress of the car project. While she was in recovery and re-hab, I did manage to get some things done on the car. First I got rid of the “Gray menace” that had been sitting in my driveway, plauging me since I came up with “my great plan” to get parts off of it. Greg of Bugformance of Stockton delivered my new rear disc brakes and picked up the Gray Menace. I was able to send the rear a-arms and associated parts to Mark Threet of Crown Powder Coating and get the rear suspension media blasted, powder coated, and ready for assembly. The rear suspension asssembly went well. I bought a tool from Greg of Bugformance of Stockton which allowed me to compress the torsion bar to the proper torque. assembly was easy once figured I out a way to push in the torsion plate bracket covers.
Using long bolts, I pulled the bracket cover in until I could put the right length bolt in, to replace the long ones. Easy as pie.
Once this was done I assembled the a-arms and stub axles. I used urathane bushings to replace the old rubber ones. These were pressed in by hand. I then used my trusty vice to press in the steel bushing which, when assembled with the pivot bolt, will be the actual pivot point for the a-arms.
