Happy early birthday to me. Updating the wheels and changing the entire rear suspension on the Nova. Going from drums & leaf springs (Cal-Tracs and Split Mono's) to a mini-tub, triangulated 4-link and disc brakes. The white car is pretty much how my car will sit when it's all done. Then it'll be time to build a motor so I can put the blower on.
I know the struggle my dude. Low profile, tall jacks are the most expensive ones you can buy. It's such a pain trying to work on a Mini.
Whoever designed the front suspension on the '73-'87 Chevy trucks can go suck a fat dick. That's all for now, I'll have an explanation for this rant later.
Worked on the truck all weekend. Still hate the POS, but i hate it a little bit less. It never went into park nicely or at all sometimes. But disconnected the linkage got my dad to hold the shifter in park and reconnected it. Now it seems to go into park all the time. I am always dream shopping for a new truck. Last year for a nice cloth, gas ford 1ton was 86ish, now? 91ish. One year that truck has gone up 5k. 6 years ago that might have been worth 60 to 65k. Man i dont know how anyone is buying new trucks. Now onto cars. Just looking to see what is out there for small cars. My little 02 civic is still going, but haven't really looked in a while. Now both the Civic and Corolla are CVT trans. My wife had a caliber with cvt and i hated it.
Alright, a couple of weeks ago, I posted a rant about GM Square-body truck suspensions. Here's why: Over the 4th of July weekend, I completely rebuilt the front suspension on Jungle Julia's '90 Suburban (which has been my daily driver for this whole year). This is where it all started: Here is the problem: THOSE FUCKING CROSS-BARS. I sorta-kinda understand why GM made the suspension this way (steel stamping technology didn't allow them to stamp individual mounts for each bushing in the frame, like more modern suspensions), but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Here's the problem: That bar has to come out to be able to remove the old bushings. You can't just slide it out, you either have to find some way of pressing the steel shell of the bushing with the bar in place... Or you have to commit violence on the bushing. I used an acetylene torch to burn out enough rubber and steel to chisel them out. By the way, here's what one of the old bushings looked like before starting the job - you can't tell from the picture, but you could actually see daylight through this bushing WHILE IT WAS INSTALLED ON THE FRAME. But just because the outer shells are out, that's not all. Next is the reason why I despise this suspension design like I do: THE INNER BUSHING SHELLS. They were all rusted to the shafts, and I had to chisel them off through that parting line that is circled above. It was really greasy work, and the hammer kept slipping, and I hit my hand several times. I had to take it to my old shop because I don't have a vise at my house, and Jungle Julia insisted on coming along. It was hot as fuck, and I kept hearing "you said it was only going to be ten more minutes thirty minutes ago!"... More to come...
Okay, I'm back. Now onto the next fun part: Getting the new bushings in! Here are the control arms cleaned up, stripped bare, and painted (VHT High-Temp engine paint. I love this stuff. It's probably the best rattle-can automotive paint available.): When pressing in the new bushings, it is possible to crush the bushing mount/ boss if the shell gets caught on the sides, if there is a slight mismatch in the size of the new bushing shell, or if God hates you. I'm sure that there is probably some special Kent-Moore tool that I could buy from the Chevy dealer for about $150+ with a month long wait-period, but I improvised: You find something that will fit in the gap to help support the control arm when pressing in the new bushing shell. I just use whatever fits best. I've used sockets, pieces of pipe, nuts stacked together, etc. I used a drive adapter this time. One side was opened up a little more than the other, so I had to shim it: (that's white lithium grease, by the way. Pretty much any grease will do.) In case anyone is wondering HOW the bushing shells get pressed in, here is the whole setup. There are many ways to do this, but this is how I did it. Here is one of the control arms with the bushing shells and ball joint mounted. If you think this job was difficult - it could have been worse! I used polyurethane bushings, and the actual "bushing"/ insulator can be pressed in by hand. If I was using rubber bushings, this job would have a whole new degree of difficulty. Remember what I said about the cross-shaft being in the way of pressing the old bushings OUT? Well, it also gets in the way of pressing the new bushings IN. And there is an additional problem: reinforcing the two bushing mounts to keep the whole control arm from bending while pressing the last bushing in. I read about guys making mounts/ fixtures to keep the whole arm from bending if shit went wrong, but I didn't have to do that with this setup. If you're having a hard time picturing what I'm talking about, imagine needing something to bridge the gap in the red box to keep the gap and keep the control arm from bending. So that's it, I still need to align it (it aligns with fucking shims; I hate working with fucking shims. Another reason I hate the suspension on these trucks.). It rides a lot better, and doesn't pop and squeak over every bump anymore. Although I hated doing it, I would definitely do it again - what can I say, I'm a mechanic.
That's one of those pain in the ass jobs that's completely worth it. The 03/04 Cobra's has the softest rubber for their IRS bushing so I changed them out for the red poly bushings (Can't recall the name). A total pain in the dick job but if I ever got one of those cars again*, that's the first thing I'd do. Actually handled and didn't wheelhop like a MF'er *Which I won't because clean, low mileage, non-molested units are going for more than MSRP
I finally got the Suburban aligned today. I took it to my old workplace, and did it myself. I DIDN'T HAVE TO FUCK WITH THE SHIMS AT ALL! It turns out that I got the alignment very close on my own in the driveway; camber and caster were great, and it was only toed-out by .31 degrees (I've seen cars driving around for years worse than that, with no major ill effects.). This came out REALLY good. I can take my hands off the wheel and let Jesus drive, and it will track straight for about half a mile (on a good road) before I need to correct it. Bet y'all didn't think an old Square-body Suburban/ C10 could do that. Here are the final specs, ask if y'all have any questions about it*: *My thrust angle is off, but it doesn't seem to be affecting anything yet. Either way, I might press out the old leaf spring bushings for new polyurethane units in the future. But I'm not going to worry about it right now. Next goal for this thing: U-joint steering shaft, new turn signal switch, wheel adapters, and 17" tires/ wheels. Stay tuned.
I was gonna ask if you had a quarter-turn of play like every other square body I've driven. I need to get my '88 k2500 tightened up. I got a little play, less than a fail on a commercial DOT inspection, but enough to be annoying.
Do what Dixie is going to do, get rid of the rag joint and replace it with a quality U joint set up, I’ve used Precision Fabrication before and they fit exactly as they should. https://precisionfabricationplus.com/shop/ols/products/73-91-gm-square-body-hd-steering-shaft
I’ve never heard a single good thing about them, which is why I’ve stayed far away. My understanding is that it’s basically just ford and ram for diesels right now?