First chassis / suspension examination

[InfinityAero]

Hey Guys,

Just joined up, only post has been new members forum (pics there). Just bought my 77 two weeks ago. She's a runner, needed a brake bleed and alignment. Bleed is done (quirky rear end setup for draining haha) so allignment this weekend.

What should I look at while she's up on the lift?

[azruss]

give the cross member a good look for cracks, especially at the bolts for the lower a-arm. retorque those as well as the chassis bolts. check A-arms for stress crack. examine the ball joints. do the same with the steering ball joints. check shock towers for rust. In fact, give the entire underside a good rust check. check bushing condition on sway bar, trailing arms, and panhard rod. check condition of the guibo and driveline pillow block. I'm sure others will add more.

[vandor]

Any worn bushings, balljoints or tie rod ends. Check the tightness of the cross member to body bolts (3 on each side).
Check for any cracks in the crossmember, especially the area that the a-arms bolt to. Check for rust. Check the size of dents in the oil pan. There is normally ~1/4" between the bottom of the pain and the oil pump pickup (in the center of the pan). Sometimes the pan gets dented so badly that oil flow is impeded.

[InfinityAero]

Thanks for the replies-- taking it in tomorrow or Saturday morning. I had never heard of panhard rods, guibos or pillow blocks so I'm glad I asked! Looks like the checklist is essentially:

Cross Member
Check for Cracks (bolts for lower A-arm)
Re-torque Bolts
Chassis Bolts – re-torque
Check A-Arms for stress cracks
Examine Ball Joints
Examine Steering Ball Joints
Check shock towers for rust
Check entire underside for rust
Check Bushing condition
Sway Bar
Trailing Arms
Panhard Rod
Tie-rod ends
Check condition of the guibo (rubber donut connecting two halfs of driveshaft)
Check condition of the driveline pillow block (drive shaft center support)
Check Oil Pan for Dents

Cheers!

[azruss]

small point. The guibo is the rubber donut between the tranny and the driveline. The pillow block supports the drive shaft center bearing. The rubber in the pillow block cracks with age. Without close inspection, it will look good.

[InfinityAero]

Roger that, thanks for the correction!

This is my first "project" car that I'm not using as a DD so I'm looking forward to having the luxury of putting her up on those lovely built-in jack stand mounts this winter and really getting everything as close to factory-spec as I can! Just trying to make sure I hit every problem area while I've got the chance now.

She felt pretty solid on the brief test drive, but there's 38 years and somewhere between 27 and 127K miles on the chassis so I'm expecting a couple bolts/mounts/joints/bushings to be on their last legs

[DieselSpider]

Don't overlook the rubber mounts for the exhaust system and flushing the coolant and brakes while your at it along with packing the wheel bearings while your checking the brakes and lubing the caliper slides.

[InfinityAero]

Don't overlook the rubber mounts for the exhaust system and flushing the coolant and brakes while your at it along with packing the wheel bearings while your checking the brakes and lubing the caliper slides.

Did the brakes last weekend, likely examine the components in more detail this winter. Grip is good for cruising.

Sanded some rust in the floorpan today, ran into a couple hopeless spots. Guess this winter will be time to learn how to weld and do some por15 treatments. Will have to examine the whole underbody and cut out the cancer and weld in new sheet metal as necessary, it seems. Prob should strip all the"weatherproofing" from the underside before it seals in any more moisture...

[InfinityAero]

Hey Guys,

Been a couple weeks, figured I'd give an update.

They weren't able to get the car into alignment, even after installing a shim. The right front tire is dialed in at 1 degree negative camber unloaded, but the LF tire has about 1 degree of positive camber. They stopped work on the alignment after they couldn't get the camber dialed in, so I adjusted the toe myself. I set it to about 1/16" toe-in on the front tires; huge improvement. I'll be raising the front of the car using ramps later this week, and will examine the shim job they did on the lower A-arm. They had told me they got that front left tire from +1.5deg to +1 degrees using the shim kit, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to add a couple more shims and get it dialed in.

Which brings up a good question-- how many shims is OK? I've never shimmed a suspension like this before, so any advice is welcome! Follow-on question-- is it better to use one thick shim or several thin shims?

The right rear tire is dialed in pretty well also, but the rear left tire has about 1/8" toe in, so my thrust line is a little off. I'm guessing a new set of trailing arms and rear control arms with new bushings and a new panhard rod will fix the alignment issues on the rear. I'd be fine with 1/16" toe in on both rear tires. From what I've heard there's a little bit of play with the mounts, so I'm hopefully I'll be able to get the thrust line set correctly, and 1/16" toe in should be great for turn-in.

Here are some photos:





Quite a bit of flash rust, but everything seems to be free of cracks or major bends/damage.

I think my plan is this at this point:
1) Shim front left tire to give at least -.5 degrees camber
2) Check torque specs of all connecting bolts (as recommended above-- didn't have time to do it while it was up on the lift)
2) Replace tires -- They're old 2-code tires with an "8" designation for the year so they're likely 17 yr old tires
3) Replace all rear control arms, panhard rod.
4) Replace springs/shocks all around
5) remove components, grind off surface rust, paint with POR-15, replace as necessary.