FRONT SUSPENSION AND FRAME
Removing the front suspension and K-member opened a pandora's box of dark secrets. All ball-joints and steering linkage were well worn and the lower control arm bushings were gone altogether. And to think that the car actually handled decently when I drove her into the garage!
The worst was yet to be discovered, though. Removed the K-member and started cleaning up the frame for repaint and found rust had eaten up the driver's side at the suspension.
The car had been sand-blasted in 1989. Apparantly the sand had gotten trapped between the gusset plates at the suspension and kept the area moist, rusting it from the inside out. There was even a loose bolt sitting in there!
Cut out the swiss cheese, cleaned out the inner frame as well as I could and treated it with Rust Converter, then sprayed cold-compound zinc inside. Hopefully, the rust will be just a bad memory from now on. I welded in new gusset plates inside the frame and extended the existing frame to allow full contact with the new frame-rail cap from Auto Rust Technicians. The frame cap had some pretty big weld seams, so I ground them smooth, cut it to fit around the previously installed torque box and treated the interior with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator. (I tried it instead of the Por-15 and don't like it as much. I'll be using Por-15 from now on)
Fully welded in the new frame-rail. Not quite up to Foose standards but not bad for a novice. This fall's been a full schedule with only modest work on the car. I did spend 3 weekends scraping, sanding, cleaning and reundercoating the underside of the car as well as coat the frame rails with Por15 for a nice clean contrast.
Cleaned undercarriage.
The front suspension is on, but I'm leaving the upper control arms off, since I will reinstall the engine by mounting it to the K-member and dropping the body down over it, like the factory did. Several people I've talked to say it makes it much easier, especially with big-blocks. I'm going to finish up the underside and will repaint the car over the winter. (I know it doesn't look like it needs it, but it does. The body shop really screwed up some things.)
Here's the front suspension and the new tubular upper control arms from Reilly Motor Sports. I got a powder coating gun from Harbor Freight and some translucent blue powder from Eastwood and had some fun!
Stay tuned for the underside............
