Ol John Lee's gettin a new front end.

[Sharps40]

6 hours and about half way done. Much of that time was spent damaging pickel forks trying to loosen up the idler arm and pitman arm from the drag link. No success. These will wait for the steering box install and go to the shop where they have a hot wrench to bust them loose. Meantime....

I started on the wet side...passenger side is more wet than drivers so figured if it was rusty and bolts busted, might as well break them first and then get all new during the down time. But no worries...48 years of greese and everything came off and went back on lickety split,,,,almost.


Breaking loose the passenger tie rod from the spindle and the drag link. Just three good wacks and the bar is out.



The bar measured 17" long and I counted the removal turns and turned the new inner and outer tie rods back in the same amount....remeasuring indicates its the same length. 17".





Like I said, the idler arm and pitman arm ain't budgin...I'll leave them in a bit longer.



With the lower control arm supported on a jack I have already tapped loose the upper ball joint....nuts still attached to keep the spring from flyin out. Here I gave up tappin the lower with a small hammer and gave it one good wack with the splitting maul (flat end) and the lower ball joint jumped out of the spindle.



I used two jacks to alternatly lower the lower spindle and the old coil just falls out.



Brakes and hoses are end of the month, so tieing off the spindle to save the hose for now.