A-arm rebuild question

[Mike Bradbury]

I have been sitting around watching the old paint on my 69 get more and more oxidized so I figured that this summer was the time to get off my butt and start bolting on the assortment of parts I have been accumulating in my garage.

A couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to do the front disc conversion. Right now it is a C20 lwb but it is going to be a C10 swb hopefully by the end of the summer. Pulled the spindles and decided it was a good time to change the ball joints and clean up the years of caked on grease and dirt that had been clogging every nut and bolt. I literally had to dig to find some of the bolts on the top of the cross member.

I took the entire cross member off and sent it to be powder coated along with the pan, steering arm, and sway bar. As I was disassembling the A arms there was a white colored sealer that was coming out of the bushing and shaft assembly. I assume to keep the grease in place and the water out.

What is that sealer called and is it necessary to re apply? every thing is powder coated chrome and black and I really do not want grease all over the place when I am done.

Some of the parts I was able to coat in my shop others were too big and had to send them out to get coated but here are some of the progress pics.



Going to paint the frame black as well as powder coat the wheel wells.


Sorry, cell phone was all I had, but the chrome powder came out nice this shot was taken at dusk when the sun is on it it is really shiny.


Here are the A arm shafts and caps my question was referring to.

[raycow]

The only stuff you should see inside the control arm bushings is grease. If you disassemble the bushings you might find the remains of rubber seals which are supposed to keep out the larger chunks of dirt.

Unless you are absolutely committed to the stock type bushings, I strongly recommend that you swap to the 73-up control arms/shafts and completely eliminate the need for grease. This is what most people do when they convert to discs anyway.

Ray

[Mike Bradbury]

I guess they fit right up to the 67-72 A arms right? What makes them not need grease? Is it a polyurethane type bushing?

[royo]

Originally Posted by Mike Bradbury

I guess they fit right up to the 67-72 A arms right? What makes them not need grease? Is it a polyurethane type bushing?

73 up are pressed in

[raycow]

No, you use the 73-up control arms and shafts together. The shafts will bolt to your stock crossmember. The bushings are metal-encased rubber, so they do not need any grease. You can get aftermarket bushings if you want polyurethane.

Ray

[Mike Bradbury]

Cool thanks for the info, but I just spent a whole bunch of money getting the 69's powder coated. I think I will be using them. Looked into after market tubular but they were beyond my budget.

[ERASER5]

At this point, I would keep my coated parts. The later model arms are a little smoother, but not a LOT smoother. Take a look at the build threads. There are a lot of people swapping in front disc brakes. Only some of them put on the later rubber bushing A-arms.