The I'm-Learning-As-I-Go 1965 Valiant Post
Haven't posted in awhile...
Started work on reconditioning the rotors. They had about 40 years of oxidation and crust on them.
Brought the rotary tool back and and gave it the same treatment as the drums....
And painted them...
And back from O'Reilly's, drums and rotors freshly turned. Put a light coat of grease on the braking surfaces until I'm ready to install the calipers.
Yanked the torsion bars with my homemade tool. Broke about 3 of them. Now I know why they make them out of metal. The best one was made out of a pair of 2x4's with the groove for the torsion bar drilled perpendicular to the grain.
Yanked UCA's, knuckles, lowers, strut rods...
Repainted the strut rods...
Everything's out.
Some goodies came in the mail... Thank god for Amazon and their free shipping to Hawaii.
Not crazy about the phenolic pistons in the calipers but I figure since it's not going to be a daily driver it'll be fine for now. Hopefully by the time they go bad there'll be some nice replacement stainless pistons. Anyone got a source of these for 1976 A body calipers?
After pressing the washers on the MOOG offset UCA bushings, I realized the arms wouldn't fit on the UCA camber bolt mounts. Darter6 mentioned that there might be a bit of a "crush" that develops over the years from the torque put on the camber bolts, so it led to this tool to spread the mounts a hair so I could get the UCAs in.
It's a simple hex bolt with a nut on each inside side of the mount. One wrench is used to hold the bolt in place, the other wrench turning one nut counterclockwise to open up the space. Little bit of a trick I figured out on spreading old steel bicycle frame dropouts to fit newer (and wider) style hubs. The press ensures that it spaces both sides evenly. And I figure that whichever side got most of the "crush", it'll likely uncrush in the same amount and side.
Uppers, lowers, and knuckles in.
More later.
Haven't posted in awhile...
Started work on reconditioning the rotors. They had about 40 years of oxidation and crust on them.
Brought the rotary tool back and and gave it the same treatment as the drums....
And painted them...
And back from O'Reilly's, drums and rotors freshly turned. Put a light coat of grease on the braking surfaces until I'm ready to install the calipers.
Yanked the torsion bars with my homemade tool. Broke about 3 of them. Now I know why they make them out of metal. The best one was made out of a pair of 2x4's with the groove for the torsion bar drilled perpendicular to the grain.
Yanked UCA's, knuckles, lowers, strut rods...
Repainted the strut rods...
Everything's out.
Some goodies came in the mail... Thank god for Amazon and their free shipping to Hawaii.
Not crazy about the phenolic pistons in the calipers but I figure since it's not going to be a daily driver it'll be fine for now. Hopefully by the time they go bad there'll be some nice replacement stainless pistons. Anyone got a source of these for 1976 A body calipers?
After pressing the washers on the MOOG offset UCA bushings, I realized the arms wouldn't fit on the UCA camber bolt mounts. Darter6 mentioned that there might be a bit of a "crush" that develops over the years from the torque put on the camber bolts, so it led to this tool to spread the mounts a hair so I could get the UCAs in.
It's a simple hex bolt with a nut on each inside side of the mount. One wrench is used to hold the bolt in place, the other wrench turning one nut counterclockwise to open up the space. Little bit of a trick I figured out on spreading old steel bicycle frame dropouts to fit newer (and wider) style hubs. The press ensures that it spaces both sides evenly. And I figure that whichever side got most of the "crush", it'll likely uncrush in the same amount and side.
Uppers, lowers, and knuckles in.
More later.