Front suspension rebuild

[djape1977]

living in eastern europe and fiddling with old fiats for 15 years, i've had both italian and russian parts in my hands and on my cars. italian parts in general are better quality but when there's no alternative or price is 3x lower, russkies are ok.
problem is that finding good ones is usually the matter of trial and error.

[basarabam]

An update on my progress. I got the Prima 2 set of A-Arms today from Vick's. Right out of the box, very nice. Look just like the OEM. What took me 5 hours, 4 of those cussing out Vick's, with the Prima 1, took me 30 minutes with the Prima 2. That was compressing the spring, removing the Prima 1, installing the Prima 2 and installing the spring and shock. This was just on the driver's side. Everything fit PERFECTLY.

Thanks to all the guys at Vick's! They worked through this even with an irate Russian like me. Tomorrow night I will get the passenger side on.

[Ramzi]

In the spirit of full disclosure.... Several years ago, both Csaba and I looked at the Lada A-arm for use on the 124 Spiders. We determined that the number of modifications, adjustments & work arounds were not worth the risk to safety. I have seen the direct result of a suspension failure at speed on a major freeway... it's not pretty and certainly not worth saving a few dollars.

Not many of you may know this, but aside from working on & owning more 124s than I have hair on my head, Csaba also has a degree in Applied Mechanical Engineering... Im taking his word on this one.

Ramzi

[bradartigue]

I noticed behind the original A-Arms there was a large amount of washers between the body and the A-Arm. Is this something the PO did or is that how it came from the factory?

When the cars were new the frames were straight, the washers were installed prior to the suspension going on to make it align. A straight frame can be measured to within a few degrees of accuracy to get the shim count correct. Once you throw a car out of alignment - by hitting a pothole or something, you bend things. Very, very slightly, but enough for that tiny bend to translate to a few degrees of bad in the alignment. The procedure for alignment was to add or remove washers; however, shops used C- or U- shaped shims so that they wouldn't have to remove the front lower A-Arm to get it right. This was common for most cars made before front wheel drive and cam-adjustable suspensions became the norm.

Finding someone who can align these cars today can be challenging because they can't comprehend how simple it is to do this. It takes some muscle, but it isn't hard to do.

[clarkedj]

Guys,

I have thread running but thought I would lob the question on this thread. In the process of putting the front end back together and find that the upper A arms are a very tight fit to the shock tower. I am reluctant to take a rubber mallet to the arm but will if you guys have had to do the same thing. It seems that angling the front of the arm ( ball joint ) at the floor and the back on the tower I can position the arm around the tower but it will take a hammer to get it in place.

Thanks

Ed Clark
404-234-7366

[ScoopMan]

Has anyone done this with external spring compressors? That is what I have on hand. Really do not want to run out and get another kind if I don't have to.

[RRoller123]

Tried that myself but found it impossible. Not enough room to manuever the external compressors around.

[basarabam]

Ed, did you ever get this solved? I didn't know you had posted a question till now. My first set was the same way and when I used a mallet the bushing popped out. After that it went up into place and the bolt pressed it back in.

Scoop, I think it was stated to me before there wasn't enough room to use an external. I have them also and will use on the rears. I narrowed an internal from O'Reily and it went easy. Theirs uses a very heavy fork platform on the bottom instead of 4 hooks.

[blurple124]

Has anyone done this with external spring compressors? That is what I have on hand. Really do not want to run out and get another kind if I don't have to.

I tried. Turns out it is easier to do the job without them (at least for getting them off).

Step 1: using a floor jack, lift the A-Arm assembly to compress the spring as much as possible (Note: Be careful not to damage the grease fitting on the ball joint - I did this by drilling a 1/2" hole in a block of wood and putting it on top of the floor jack)

Step 2: Use two tie-down straps, one on either side, and loop them around as many coils as possible, then hook each end on a coil. Keep the straps tight so that the spring does not have room to decompress.

Step 3: Unbolt the upper A-Arm from the shock tower.

Step 4: Lower the jack, allowing the lower arm to extend fully until the spring can be safely removed.

Step 5: Tighten a spring compressor on the coils until tension in the straps is released

Step 6: Undo the tie-down straps and then the spring compressor(s).


Re-assembly

Step 1: Use a spring compressor (external works just fine) to compress the spring as much as possible.

Step 2: Once again, wrap the tie down straps in a manner which will not interfere with suspension components once the springs are seated.

Step 3: Seat the compressed spring in the lower arm seat and raise the arm assembly with the jack until the A-arm is aligned in position

Step 4: Bolt the upper arm in place and compress the suspension until the tie-down straps can be easily removed. Lower the jack and suspension assembly.


All of this is done without the shock absorber in place, which can be removed and installed without disassembling the suspension.



I hope this helps.

[4uall]

Thanks for the help, I finally got everything back together I did hitting the upper ball joint with a hammer and that did work, could not find a nut that fit without the nylon ring and jacking the lower A-Arm up did not work...seems you need the engine in for the weight to make it work that way. The other thing I tried, and worked, was Jack the lower A-Arm int the steering spindle then putting the nut on a bit. At that point I used a ball joint fork between the nut and steering spindle and hit it a few times till the lower ball joint seated. Using the fork seemed to work real well and no damage to nut or spindle.

Just curious to know how you removed the shield? http://forum.fiatspider.com/f08/viewtop ... 16#p165216

[SLOSpider]

BoB I went to your photo bucket to check out the picks and saw Terrys Fiat frame! Then I came back to comment and saw OSOSBOB! Guess your in Los Osos? I use to live in Grover beach and AG and dealt with Terry alot. I was trying to find him as I know he probably got a stack of Fiats somewhere still. Do you know him or where he is at?

Im in Lompoc now and my other Fiat I had I sold to a friend in Atascadero. We should get together soon. Brian