Some times it’s all about the small victories. I’ spent the last two weekends trying to finish tearing down the suspension and steering components. This includes the upper control arms, lower control arms and steering link (tie rods and center link). Last weekend was extremely discouraging. I spent close to six hours working on the car and at the end of it I felt like I had achieved almost nothing. I managed to remove the ball joints from the upper arms and that was it. The rest of the time was spent beating on the bump stop bolts on the lower control arms and using an air chisel to try to remove the bushings from the control arms. Nothing worked. So I soaked everything real good with PB Blaster and left it.

I went back today and in 35 minutes was more successful than I was over the course of both days last weekend. I was able to get both of the ball joints out of the lower control arms and I was able to remove one bushing from one of the upper control arms. Success! I will probably end up taking the control arms to a machine shop and have the old bushings pressed out and the new ones pressed in. I’m tired of dealing with these things!

Today I also rebuilt the tie rods with new tie rod ends. I also cleaned up some of the other steering parts with a wire wheel to prep them for paint.

Hopefully next weekend I will get the media blaster I ordered so I can blast all of the front end parts, frame and firewall. Then some real fun begins!