I'd rather drink castor oil !

I know it's hard to believe, but having spent the last 3 days replacing the 8 lower control arm bushings in my 74 "B" project car, I've decided that I would rather drink castor oil, then do it again.
It seemed like a simple enough task, and after making the decision that I'd rather do it on the lift, at shoulder height, than on the floor , and on my knees, I proceeded to work out an "easy" method.....
If you haven't done this, take my word for it, there ain't no easy method! Especially if your working alone.
I thought that I would use a short length of hardened 1/2" tow chain slipped over the knee-shock mount, and down through the open coils, and through the "doughnut"....Terminating inside the doughnut, with a forged "eye bolt", held in place with a closeable link....
With the eyebolt hanging through the doughnut, and a two inch internal diameter pipe nipple, about 4 inches long, the eyebolt went through a steel plate under the pipe, and then a nut and washer.
Tightened down, this would hold the spring and doughnut, while I did the surgery....
I used a 50/50 solution of acetone and ATF, and brushed it on all the nuts and bolt heads, and left it overnight.....
Then the fun began...All the nuts came off with little effort...BUT I had to either raise , or lower the suspension (using my bridge jack under the frame), in order to get the bolts, or the sway bar links to come out of the arms......I only loosend one side of the doughnut at a time, hoping to keep everything in alignment while pulling off each side of the arm....That was a joke!
Nothing stayed in position (except the spring ), and arm alignment went haywire.....
Using ropes, bottle jack, crow bars, brute force, and a lot of bad words....it took a total of about 20 man-hours to replace the 8 lousy bushings.....BUT, now I know for sure....I don't want to have to do this again , any time soon! The funny thing is, the old bushings were in pretty good shape, considering their age.
Now I have the windshield replacement to look forward to.....Am I NUTS !
Sorry there are no pictures, I was too involved in the "fun" and the grease , to take them.

Edward

You should probably put the old bushings back in and save the new ones for when you really need them.

From what I've read on this forum, the windshield replacement is one of the tougher jobs known to mankind.

Keep us posted.

Not that it helps now, but a spring compressor would have made easy work of that job. Clamp it on the spring, then simply remove the four bolts holding the spring pan on and the spring drops out. Then you can take apart whatever you want without fighting the spring tension.

Barry,
My condolences.

Not that hard if part of a front-end rebuild but a lot of work if just doing the four a-arm bushings. You could have probably done a complete teardown/rebuild in that length of time.

It took three of us working an afternoon to reinstall my windscreen on the car.

I can do this job, if the king pin bottom bolt comes out with out a lot of problems, in no more than a hr. I do this job on the floor, put your jack stands under the rail right behind the ft. tires. Pull the bottom king pin bolts & sway bar bolts, run the floor jack around to pass side of the car & push up the A arm on the drivers, push out the bottom king pin bolt & lower the jack. With running your floor jack in line with the way the A arm pivits, the jack will rool out as the spring pushes out. I un-do the back arm of the A arm & this way you dont have to mess with the sway bar link nut that has to be tight. Put anti-seze on the king pun bolts were the job is easyer next time.

Edward while you are drinking your good tasting castor oil, I would like you to know that on MY CARS I can the V-8 bushing job in 35 mins./ start to finish.

You tried to do it the hard way.
You take the lower pivot apart at the bottom of the kingpin, then take the a-arm apart. It's easy to use a jack to support the springpan while taking it apart, then lower it to release the spring pressure, then jack it back up to compress the spring to put it back together.

And this is where having the 550# springs makes everything easier. Get the car on stands put a jack on the lower arm and jack it up till its got the weight remove the upper bolt and let the jack down and remove the spring. Takes less than 5 minutes.

Now the real fun is changing the crossmember pads.

If you carefully (ha ha) read my post, I had no trouble with any of the bolts or nuts.....The 50/50 solution took care of that....No frozen parts at all....The lower king pin bolt came out with no real effort.
My original intent was to do the job on the ground with floor jacks, but I decided (my first mistake) , to do it on the lift.
There were two problems...One, was doing it on the lift....Because I did not feel like working for hours on my knees, which hurt even under normal circumstances (old knees!)....The second was keeping all in line, while trying to put the thing back together.....
I was not really interested in trying to get the springs out, as I was not the least bit confident, that once out, I could get them back in....
I have spring compressors, but they do not fit in these springs, as there is no access to the top of the springs, and no access to the bottom , (except through the doughnut)...Obviously, I have the wrong type compressors....
Mine are very heavy, and have a large hooked casting at each end, with a large screw to tighten....The MGB spring is too large a diameter wire, plus, the compressor will not fit inside the doughnut, between the coils..I have lots of tools, but something specialized for this job would be too expensive for a one time event.
Compressing, or holding the spring did not turn out to be the problem.(the chain solved that)...The problem was keeping all straight, when putting it back together....
As a long-former t.v. personality once said, "Easy for you....deeefeeecult for me!"
I think I'll stick to rebuilding engines.

The spring pan comes out with four bolts and the spring comes with it. This leaves the rest of the assembly hanging loose so you can take each part off easily. In fact, with the spring pan / spring removed, there it only a single bolt left to remove (lower king pin bolt) to allow the A-arms to fall free. Slip them back on, put the king pin bolt back in, slide the spring pan / spring back into place and replace the four bolts.

This is the type of spring compressor you would have needed to do this job in the air....

It cost me $40 at a local parts house a few years ago. You can also buy them from Mac Tools for a bit more. The base looks exactly like the top, meaning it has hooks on both ends. Only one set of hooks is needed for MGB springs because the spring pan acts as the base anyway.

:drinking:

Just for info, I priced a "proper" spring compressor at the local NAPA ....$199.00 . So , I guess you could say that I suffered, but saved $200 ! I've never seen one in the Harbor Freight catalogue....I'll check with CarQuest, the next time I'm there.

For reference, this one is $26 and looks small enough: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350288962137

Looks fairly similar to mine, probably an off-shore copy.

X2 on Glenn's comments on how to do this. My problems were with getting the bolts apart (upper trunnion), and then fitting it back together such that the crown nut would go on enough to expose the cotter pin hole. But the actual parts removal/install was very easy (also see library article - was extremely helpful...).

I can't speak for that exact tool, but it looks remarkably similar to the tool I use, as pictured earlier in the thread. It may be slightly smaller but it's hard to tell. The tool I have is capable of safely compressing springs MUCH larger and stronger than those found on an MGB. Additionally, on an MGB you only have to compress about half of the spring to remove it.

Whilst tempted to start a new thread..................feel free, anyone so inclined.

My wife always complains that I have a this for that and a thingy for whatever etc.......but a $50 spring compresser versus 20, Twenty, 2 times ten, hours of work, more than justifies a tool laying in your workshop that you can, display on your shadow board, lend to buddies, use next time, or put on e-bay when you're finished.

Despite what people think.....an hour of your time is worth the same as a plumber or an electrician....even if you're mowing lawns. Strike a rate....I say $65.00 per hour regardless, so 20 Hours = $1300.........spring compressor definitely cheaper.
PS I think "Her Indoors" agrees with this logic.

Cheers

Chris