Time for another sporadic update.
Picked away at tearing down the front end and cleaning things up over the summer.
I was unable to get either end of the torsion bars out, so I ended up cutting the crossmember so I could drop the ends out. Once it was out I cut the keys off. I just left the other end in the control arm and treated it as one big unit.
You must be registered for see images attach
I work for a steel fabrication company, and we have a paint shop, so I was able to get the torsion bar crossmember, trans support crossmember, LCA/bars, and sway bar sandblasted, and welded the trans crossmember back together.
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
I had a ***** of a time getting the pitman arm off the steering box. Kept breaking cheap tools until I found a parts store that had a heavy duty pitman arm puller.
#1 Pitman Puller from Princess Auto. Used the impact (shouldn't have), stripped out the threads. Returned
#2 3 jaw puller from PA. Arm was two wide for the arms to fit around it. Kept it though.
#3 2 jaw puller from PA. Cot cockeyed and bent the arm plates. Returned
#4 Pitman puller from Canadian Tire. No impact, lots of lube. Stripped still, returned.
#5 rental Pitman puller from PartSource, except it was actually a tie rod puller. I had nothing else to try, so I ground down the sides of the arm so it would fit over it. Didn't work though and I didn't want to destroy it like the others.
#6 - HD rental puller. The arm basically fell off after a couple turns with the breaker bar on the HD puller. It was so easy that it had to have been all the previous lubing and beating... I'm just glad it's off lol.
Once I had everything off the truck, I wire wheeled then painted all the parts of the frame I could reach. Then I hit it with some rust converter spray, Eastwood Rust Encapsulator and Extreme Chassis Black, which I ran out of, so the last coat is just aerosol rust paint. (Guess I haven't taken and painted photos yet)
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach