Bunch of new goodies arrived and on the way

Lux

Lux

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So after 2+ weeks everything for my front suspension rebuild is here. I have included some closeups for future reference of the parts. Something i noticed was...my trw lowers have a clear boot with green rings holding them on....just like the arnott uppers... i found that interesting.

So this is what i decided on going with.

95 Thunderbird Supercoupe Lowers- TRW 10771 & 10772 (harder pivot bushing..probably wont make a difference but i figured wth)
Arnott Industries Uppers
OEM Ford Strut Rod bushings, all of them. HUGE difference over the garbage they give you with the TRW arms. Very happy i went this route.
Moog Swaybar Links
Prothane Polyurethane Tie Rod boots

The outer tie rods look great but if they need replaced ill get them tomorrow, my napa has them in stock. Otherwise, ill just grease them and throw the poly boots on. That should cover the front suspension for a little bit then it goes to FORD to get an alignment.

I also have the ASHAM8 on order, very happy i finally got in touch with him. That should be arriving very soon. I wanted to sensor lower and i liked the ray switch but driving on crappy roads made me decide to spring for the ASHAM8 for full adjustments at the touch of a button.

I also have all the JMOD stuff sitting here which is next on the list for installation.

After this- its gears, TL, the 93 one piece ds i have, chassis stiffening, polyurethane, and fat swaybars. :D

More to follow as the weekend progresses. I just pulled it in the garage, probably dont feel like messing with it tonight so tomorrow morning it will go under the knife. If anyone has any suggestions/tips to make the job go by faster feel free to shoot them my way. :)



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Sounds like you'll be busy for a bit :)
Any of the upper control arm boots you took off any good? I'm looking for just a boot.
Thanks
 
sounds like your about to start on a blood, sweat, tears and bad words project.
 
Most important of all those parts, the PB Blaster, soak the hell out of all the bolts and nuts well in advance. I hope you have air tools, doing that by hand is going to suck and you're going to be sore.
 
lsc8 said:
sounds like your about to start on a blood, sweat, tears and bad words project.
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Duck said:
Looks like a fun Saturday!!!!:D
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96hotrodlincoln said:
And Sunday potentially!
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kustomizingkid said:
Even when I did that job with the WRONG parts it took me 7 hours...
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k9t8m said:
Somebody is going to be busy......
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Hahaha, very true.

I've been hammering away for about 2 hours now and NOTHING wanted to come apart. The lower and strut rod at the frame and lower mount for the air spring are all thats left then its time to put it back together. I didnt plan on doing it all today, very glad about that. What a PITA :D
 
96hotrodlincoln said:
Most important of all those parts, the PB Blaster, soak the hell out of all the bolts and nuts well in advance. I hope you have air tools, doing that by hand is going to suck and you're going to be sore.
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I have some air tools but no longer a compressor. :rolleyes:

Its cool though, with my couple cheater pipes i make short work of PITA nuts/bolts.
 
Stack said:
Why the Arnott? Why not TRW/Moog as well??
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I was on a budget...an hour in the project i thought I should have bought the TRW uppers but its to late for that now. I'm not replacing the tie rod ends either as they have some life in it. Theres a lifetime warranty on them, so when they fail ill order the TRW's and have new arnotts as spares.
 
It sounds like you did better than I did.

I did the drivers side last weekend. A bit of a pain, no big troubles though.

Today the passenger side is fighting me. The airspring/shock to lower control arm bolt was frozen and actually broke the bushing loose in the control arm. I had to remove everything together and cut the bolt off with a dremel.

Then the upper ball joint didn't want to come out of the spindle. While I was working on that, it started to pour down rain.

I'll get back to it when it stops raining.:(
 
I used a honkin screwdriver pride in the upper and pulled it sideways and the wife hit the ball joint with a hammer and it fianlly poped out
 
Update-

All thats left is to install swaybar links, calipers (in the way for swaybar links) and strut rods. Lower it back down, let the air ride pump up, and torque the lower bolt on the air springs and the LCA bolts to spec, then off to get it aligned.

It went pretty bad, i spent part of yesterday and some of today on it. The lower control arm bolt on the passenger side was FUBAR (alignment bolt with the cams) and i tried to chase the threads but since its not completely round it wasnt up to my liking. Then i realized the washer was also damaged. So this morning i had to drive down to the u pull it and take some upper and lower control arm bolts off a cougar. I tear the other side down and that one was also damaged. Looks like whoever aligned it just tore it upand didnt tighten the nut just went to town on the bolt head which caused it to tear up the alignment washer.

Other then that nothing wanted to come apart and i had to use a BFH and lots of PB blaster on everything. Could of been worse i suppose. I still dont know what to make of these sleeves/ferrules. I got them apart but on reassembly...well i dont know, it just doesnt make sense. You have to pry one side out to take the washers off...then when u do that it mangles the end of it so when u reassemble it..i just dont know. The shop manual isnt much help with this either. Anyone thats done this before whats the deal with reusing the original sleeves?

P.S. - I read alot of people had to take the master cylinder off or the fender splash guard to get the upper out on the driverside....you definitely dont need to do this at all. A regular wrench and some finesse it will come right off...no need to remove any of that.
 
kustomizingkid said:
I reused the sleeves on the one I did... but they came out really easy for some odd reason...
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Did you put them back the same way they came off? Mine were frozen shut so when i had to work the lip over a little bit, then pry the washer off. So the end looks dumpy. I thought about grinding the messed up part off and putting them back in that way.

Its a great idea i guess how they designed it..when they are new, but very stupid when your trying to reuse them and its like 185 bucks a side for the hardware.
 
Lux said:
You already said that. They are meshed together once they are installed..how did you "just reuse them" if when u take them apart it messes up the end?
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They didn't get messed up.... That is what I'm saying man... I just took them off, and reused them... don't know why they did this and yours didn't...
 
kustomizingkid said:
They didn't get messed up.... That is what I'm saying man... I just took them off, and reused them... don't know why they did this and yours didn't...
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From the factory you cant take it apart without messing them up. Its an inner and outer sleeve, the inner is connected on both sides...

maybe the car you did this on already had strut rod bushings replaced? If so, that makes sense.

I came to the conclusion it doesnt matter how short the inner sleeve is really, as long as it does its part and holds the washer to the bushing the outer sleeve does the same thing for the rear bushing. Because of this, it would make sense that the ferrules do not have to be attached together, just slide in and out of one another and do thier job holding the washers in place.
 
Dude you keep missing what I'm saying...

I HAVE NO CLUE WHY THEY WERENT MESSED UP BUT THEY WERENT....
 
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