Front suspension rebuild tips?

[onewhippedpuppy]

Anyone have any tips or tricks that might help me? This weekend I'm doing thrust arms w/750 bushes, sway bar links, tie rods, tie rod center link, and the 3mm spring pad. I have a Bentley, and have read the E34.net procedures on it, just curious if anyone has any experiences that might make it easier.

[Russell]

Start early! From what I have read, this task could take you all weekend even with proper tools. Sounds like you will need a spring compression and tierod tools.

[joshua43214]

Do this to make your alignment guy happy.

raise the vehicle and support on stands, center the steering wheel. rotate the tires until the valve stems point straight up. hook a tape measure in the tread of one wheel and measure to a tread spot on the opposite wheel. mark both spots with chalk. measure with the tape as close to the chassis as you can get, useing a scratch awl, mark a spot abuot way 1/2 betwen the wheels and write down both measurements.

Now you can set the tow back to very close to what it is now, I always do this when I replace more than 1 tierod at a time. I find it much more reliable than counting turns on threaded parts.

Before you complaign that the toe will be off because your tierods are bad. Unless the tierods are about to separate, they will return to very close to their center position when unloaded. I have done this and found the toe to be in spec on more than one occasion.

Oh, and don't forget to leave the steering wheel unlocked.

Also, make sure you are not under the car when it decides to fall off the jack stands, Safety First =)

[Speeder 553]

Anyone have any tips or tricks that might help me? This weekend I'm doing thrust arms w/750 bushes, sway bar links, tie rods, tie rod center link, and the 3mm spring pad. I have a Bentley, and have read the E34.net procedures on it, just curious if anyone has any experiences that might make it easier.

A case of beer.

[Bill R.]

Here

Anyone have any tips or tricks that might help me? This weekend I'm doing thrust arms w/750 bushes, sway bar links, tie rods, tie rod center link, and the 3mm spring pad. I have a Bentley, and have read the E34.net procedures on it, just curious if anyone has any experiences that might make it easier.

[yaofeng]

Here

That's right. Removing the thrust arm ball joint is probably the torughest job. A 4 lb hammer comes in handy. Someone gave me a similar recommendation before I exhaust my options using the pickle fork. Just pound away.

[Kristuphir]

I would say getting that center link out is right up there in the "tough" category too. I had to "modify" a pickle fork to get it in at the right angle on the passenger's side; i was able to use a standard threaded ball-joint splitter from Autozone or someplace on the driver's side when the fork wasn't doing the trick, just barely fit in there under/between the brake lines. Be careful! Lots of people have tips and tricks for the tougher parts, so search around a bit more.

And yeah, what the other guy said...start early on Saturday and don't make any plans for Sunday, just in case! This can take hours or it can take days...just depends on the tools, expertise, and state of current components.

[Rustam]

I would say getting that center link out is right up there in the "tough" category too. I had to "modify" a pickle fork to get it in at the right angle on the passenger's side; i was able to use a standard threaded ball-joint splitter from Autozone or someplace on the driver's side when the fork wasn't doing the trick, just barely fit in there under/between the brake lines. Be careful! Lots of people have tips and tricks for the tougher parts, so search around a bit more.

And yeah, what the other guy said...start early on Saturday and don't make any plans for Sunday, just in case! This can take hours or it can take days...just depends on the tools, expertise, and state of current components.

Follow Bill's procedure to remove the parts from the chassis.
If you care to use pickle fork instead of banging on the pin with the hammer my tip is to remove the ball joint boot first. Using pickle fork with the ball joint boot will take enormous amount of time and effort to separate parts - it may not even happen which necessitates Bill's procedure. The reason is the fact that the force of impact transfers into the rubber cusion that the ball joint boot forms on the way of the fork. Make sure you remove it completely such that no amount of rubber comes into contact with the fork. In 5-7 hard blows the pickle fork separates the thrust arm without ball joint boot. The fork's tip ends must be cut off to allow room.

[Qube]

I watched my indy do it all in about 3 hours including alignment. Installed the m5 FCP 10 pc upgrade kit from eBay. Also did the pitman arms too.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Thanks for the tips guys. I've been giving the search function a pretty good workout, but it never hurts to get more advice.