Tims Control Arms

[dufkis]

Tim we still on for timorow am to install ur controll arms? 9am? Kirk if you wanna drop by ur more than welcome to.

Joel

[Kirk]

What time are you guys starting??

[Tim Russell]

I'll be there at 9 or a bit before. :thumbs_up

[Kirk]

Doh... I need to learn to read carefully. I got the time after you both posted it.

[dufkis]

Kirk u comin by?

[Kirk]

I will let Tim tell the whole story.

They were Owned by a bolt. :D

[Tim Russell]

Really it was 2 bolts, one we beat in the end and the other beat us

The uppers took about an hour, we got the sway bar off, the shocks off and lowered the rear end. The bolts came out fairly easy. Joel was doing most of the work 'cause he'd done it before and knew a few tricks to it. We had a little trouble lining up one of the upper control arm bolts but we got it in.

Lower control arms. We started on the passenger side and thats when the trouble started, come to think of it that's about when Kirk showed up. J/K It took us a long time to get the rear bolt out. Joel then moved on to the front and we couldn't get it to back out more than a 1/2" or so. The muffler gets in the way being just to the inside of the torque box.

Joel needed to get to class so with time being short we put it back togeather.

So right now I have the new uppers in place and stock lowers. I'm going to change the shocks this afternoon. Good idea from Joel we put the shock bolts in so they can be changed with the tires on.

I got an idea to get the bolt out. Maybe on some Saturday we can get it done:

On a Friday night I'll get the car jacked up on jack stands. Get the wheels, sway bar and shock bolts out. Then I'll drop the exhaust from the H-pipe back so the mufflers can be moved out of the way. Joel had one side off but we ran out of time. That way they'll be good access to the inside side of the torque box. Now as to the bolt. If I used a smaller bolt to push on it with a short length of 2 x 4 (looks like one will fit) while it was rotated it should come out I think. I'll need someone with an extra trolly jack to stop by to help wresle with rear end.

Joel thank you so much for the help today. I owe you steak and :beer: for sure for this one. :thumbs_up

Well lunch is done so out to change the shocks.

[Tim Russell]

Just finished changing the shocks and taking a little test drive. Man it feels different. Went on a side road and did a little burnout from a stop :hehe: none of the massive wheel hop I used to get. Have to see what it's like at the track with all the rubber and VHT. The rear feels tighter but once the lowers go on that should really tighten things up.

Also cleaned the windows and got the MMA windowstickers on. With a dirt parking lot at work I decied to wait the car wash till Sat before I leave for the track. :shifter:

Joel and Kirk, let me know what you think of my thoughts of setting the car up in my garage for swapping the lowers. Seems like if I have everything off / lose it shouldn't take that long to get the damm lowers done. Owned by a bolt :thud: It's happened to us all before I'm sure :)

[Kirk]

that should work

[Tim Russell]

Might do it next weekend. One thing I'll be doing is using some blocks I made up to drive the front end up on to so I get the whole car up for getting underneath.The main thing I think I'll need help with now that I've seen Joel working on it is getting things lined up. I only have one jack and we really needed the two today.

[Kirk]

I have a set of ramps you can borrow. Floor jack too...

[dufkis]

Yeah it was fun times today and I still made it to class on time :D Wish we had a bit more time but at least the uppers got done.

[Kirk]

And Tim did the shocks later.

[jefflouis]

Owned by a bolt :thud: It's happened to us all before I'm sure :)

i've had that happen before, but in my case i rounded off a bolt on my intake when i was doing my spacer, because i was turning the bolt the wrong way. :thud:

congrats on getting the uppers and shocks on though! what kind of shocks did you get?

[Tim Russell]

Not having much spare $$$ right now I got some Monroe Sensetrack (SP?).
Considering the stock shocks have 71K miles on them anything is an improvement. I'm sure they didn't help me last year for that matter. Next year I'll be doing the struts. There I want to go adjustable.

Ok new bolt removal idea. I have a clamp/spreader that has 2 arms that can fit in the outer torque box access hole (the nut side). Put a slightly smaller bolt in a socket and then use the spreader to put pressure on the bolt while turning. Probably wouldn't hurt to lube the end of the bolt. I think our problem yesterday was that we didn't really have a way to push the bolt end and turn it with the muffler in the way. Came up with that in the shower. I do some of my best thinking there.
:thumbs_up

[Tim Russell]

Ok one thing when we do the lowers. Make sure that little pigtale on the lower end of the spring is facing the drivers side. In our haste to get things back togeather we missed that. The spring slid forward and was hitting the LCA and making a knocking sound. I was also feeling some weird movement from that corner of the car. I think the spring was sliding back and forth a bit. It was weird because it wasn't doing it this morning so it must have been a pot hole on that wonderful access road to my work. :rolleyes:

All good now, after I jacked up the car and took off the wheel I could see the problem. So I undid the shock and was able to push the axel down enought to get the spring on the perch and rotate it to the correct position. Time for a test drive. :shifter: