Removing the Front Suspension
The right, inner tie rod end is quite loose on Ruby, our 440H. Besides all that, I'm going through much of the car to make sure all is happy, and will put her back together. Not *exactly* a frame-off restoration, but enough to make sure that she is safe and won't degrade further from rust that is preventable. Today I removed the front suspension as one unit.
Besides the power steering cylinder, which is mounted to the passenger side and the front engine cross brace, there are just eight bolts and four nuts that hold the front suspension on. Here are the lower and upper driver's side bolts:
These hold the control arms to the unibody. The rear one is in the rear of the picture. Notice the shims. These fit against the inside of the unibody wall.
Here is a closeup of the front, lower bolt:
Here is a closeup of the rear, lower bolt:
The shims go in here:
The passenger side was a bit different. Here is the front, lower bolt:
The rear, lower bolt has one of the shims in, almost turned upside down, which probably shouldn't be:
Here are the lower, passenger side bolts removed:
The entire suspension, removed:
I was able to separate this to make it easier to store, by removing the tie rod end that was loose anyway. At least on that end, it appears that the boot was simply resting against the metal, and wasn't sealed or bonded to the rest of the tie rod end. I tried to avoid using a pickle bar, as this damages the boot, but I couldn't find a puller that would work correctly for me. The closest was a pitman arm puller I had. If it was slightly more narrow it might have worked. Now, since the tie rod end was loose anyway, no big deal. The boot pops right off, and, yes, it did get a crack when I used the pickle bar. I suppose if I clean it off and use some ATV, it might work in a pinch.
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