Problems found while rebuilding front end

[rlmiller]

So I took this weekend to finally rebuild the front end on my spider. After trying to press out the bushings several years ago on my parts car's a-arms, I borrowed a HF press from a friend. While I completed pressing out the bushings on the old a-arms I noticed that both lower shafts appeared to be bent. I had scuffed the threads on the previous attempt so wasn't worried about it, thinking I would just use the one currently on the car, however once I got it off it appears to be bent .



I then found a crack just in front of the left shock tower





So do I need a new lower pivot shaft, or is the bend end not an issue. What is involved in welding the crack? It appears to be layers of metal there, and I don't know how many layers it goes.

[So Cal Mark]

definitely replace the shaft, hard to say if just the outer layer is cracked. That's not an area I normally see cracked

[rlmiller]

Well Mark, "hearing" you say that is like hearing your doctor say Uh-Oh, or your dentist say OOPs. If you don't normally see it, then It really gives me pause. So the shafts; do they often bend like that? I see no evidence that this car was wrecked or mistreated prior to me.

[So Cal Mark]

I would say the bent shaft is unusual. Reusing the shaft in that condition will not allow the control arm to pivot properly. I'm thinking more like pothole damage rather than a crash.

[DieselSpider]

I weigh about 250 and have been concerned that I may be a bit much for a car designed for a 150 lb driver and passenger. At the 300 lbs indicated in your other post you are putting the entire driver passenger load on the drivers side of the car. Are there any signs from the suspension bumpers and such that they have been bottoming out much? You may need to consider beefing up the front frame and suspension especially if you take a passenger regularly.

I just recently took my kid brother for a spin and his additional 210 lbs put us at 460 lbs in the front seats which is just over the total passenger and luggage capacity of the car. If I had lowered it I would suspect I would have been in serious trouble on any of the traffic humps or speed bumps so popular here in Tampa Bay. The car felt quite planted with 460 lbs in it and you could feel every irregularity in the road like we were running on old fashioned bias belted tires instead of radials.

The turbo diesel around town just handled the 460 lbs in the same manner as with just single occupant. Peppy and consistent but no race horse.

A good frame and alignment shop that specializes in resto-mods will best advise you on beefing things up to handle the unequal weight. This situation would be one where I would consider lighter bumpers to allow for heavier driver/passenger loads than the car was originally designed for.

[rlmiller]

I guess a little background on my car might help. I've owned it for about 5-6 years. It came from down in the Medford Oregon area. I don't know much of its past other than he was not the initial owner and he would not have "Hot Rodded" it. Since I've owned it, it has only been driven about a season and a half due to lack of time and mission creep. This past summer was the first time it has seen the road consistently for many years.

My idea of a fun trip in it is 35 - 45 m/h on back county roads with the stereo on and top down. Its longest trip was to the Mirafiori event near Ashland Oregon this past July. So......... although I weigh enough for driver and passenger , I drive it "lightly", for lack of a better term, so I don't think in my case the weight will be an issue. (Although I will entertain offers to turn my spider into a center seat lemans style car so I'm equally balanced) ( so, since I don't know most or any of you personally I feel responsible to inform you that I am kidding. My wife tells me I have a very strange sense of humor and it definitely gets lost in "text")

Ramzi advised me that AR has the pivot shafts so I'll make an order tomorrow. Now I just have to find a solution to the crack. Tomorrow I'll clean up the bottom and inner wall and hope I find no evidence of cracking there. Then start calling friends that can weld well.

I do find it curious that both this car and my 75 parts car have bent lower pivot shafts. We might of discovered a previously overlooked weak point, probably too late for a factory recall

[DieselSpider]

Its taken a while to register that those are bent sideways. Were they both bent towards the same side as if a curb were hit and is the bend in the front or the back?

[RRoller123]

This is just a small aside, but still pertinent, I think. When doing a string alignment after front end work, I pondered the effect of the car being laden or not. Well, if you set up the string and then slightly push up and down on the front bumper, it is evident that the toe-in is very much effected by the weight in the car. It makes most sense to me to align it with the car laden as it will be when driven. Being a cabinetmaker, I was able to lay down some heavy duty moving mats across the seats and put about 75 clamps weighing ~2-1/2 lbs each across the front, but biased to the driver's side, since I drive 95% of the time alone in the car. No weight in the rear seats or trunk.

[rlmiller]

Its taken a while to register that those are bent sideways. Were they both bent towards the same side as if a curb were hit and is the bend in the front or the back?

That is a very good question that unfortunately I had not thought about. I cleaned up one of the shafts on my wire wheel, but am on my way out to see if either set tells the story.

[rlmiller]

OK, went out to see if I could decipher an answer to Dieselfiat's question and found out a couple of things. 1. I had wire brushed the bent pivot bolt well enough that I was unable to determine how it had originally been attached so i don't know if it was bent out or in. 2. I examined the bent pivot bolts from my parts car and determined they were not bent the same. On my parts car's shafts the thread portion is bent, not the whole end shaft. I think that I probably bent them several years ago when I initially tried to remove the bushings without a press. 3. The crack is just on the outside face of the left side so welding should not be a huge ordeal.

I did come up with another question. When removing the lower A-arms the front crossmember attachment bolt on the right side was turning.The head appeared to be round but I was able to throw vicegrips on it and get the nut off, but what to do with it as I could see it might make alignments problematic. Tack weld it when I have the crack welded? or Does a new bolt solve the problem?

[njoconnor]

Interesting about those pivot bolts. I did not bother to check my originals, since I was replacing all of the A arms with new (and I trusted that the new bolts were straight!.... Might just wander out to the garage this weekend and pull the old A arms out of their storage box and see.

As for the cross member bolt turning: I had the same issue, but right side rear. PO had subbed in an 11/16 SAE bolt, which I assumed was the proper 12mm size. Alignment guy discovered it, we subbed a different bolt in temporarily, and then my mechanic and I put the car on the lift and worked a proper 12mm hardened bolt into the cross arm and out to the lower A arm.

We tightened with through a vertical opening in the cross member, adjacent to the bolt head, holding the bolt head still with a pry bar inserted through the vertical opening. Got it torqued down to spec without issues. We discussed tack weld, but decided against it after we got the proper torque on the bolt.

This may help with your situation.

Neil

[rlmiller]

Thanks Neil. Just read through your adventure this morning . It helps to know others have had this job to do and survived it without permanent psychological damage.

[njoconnor]

It helps to know others have had this job to do and survived it without permanent psychological damage.

Welllll....it may be a little early in my post-trauma period to assume *that*....

There are other threads on front suspensions which helped me, Jay's in particular. Whenever I got to a frustrating point, I would go do something else for a while and decompress. Funny how a solution....or a C-clamp.....worked much better after a break.

Keep at it, and remember, it IS supposed to be fun!

Neil

[rlmiller]

So, an additional problem.

Started to reinstall bushings and bar on lower control arms. one side seated fine, but the other is .4" from seating but the inside washer and bushing appear to be fully seated.







If I try and finish seating it I think the rubber will just displace. If I recall correctly these lower arms are from my '75 parts car instead of my '77, but aren't they the same?

Edit: On Mirafiori I found an old post from Richard Ridge that suggests I have the inner washers on backwards. Cupped out instead of cupped in. thoughts?

[So Cal Mark]

sounds like the ears on the control arms are bent inwards, this usually happens when installing the bushings with a BFH