1963 Dart 170 2 Door Post Resto

I really gotta learn to put down the damn shovel when I start digging...lol. After reading a bit and thinking I decided to proactively order the LCA bushings and and strut rod bushings and do everything while I am there, wore out or not. That way, I know what I have is all new and good to go.

I loosened off the Torsion bar (25 turns in my case...letting it be nice and loose) and removed the upper ball joint, supporting the spindle by Ty wrapping it to the shock to keep it from drooping and putting stress on the brake hose. I then proceeded to remove the upper control arm. Gotta love dry Arizona cars. The upper came apart super easy. Replaced the bushings and reinstalled it and installed the new upper ball joint. Going to wait until I get the lower done and put load on the suspension before I tighten the control arm bushings to better "center" them.

I then proceeded to remove the lower ball joint. Having the upper reinstalled allows the spindle to hang, again keeping no stress on the brake hose. I had to remove the lower spring on the brake assembly to allow access to the ball joint bolts. There is a notch in the hub to allow a socket extension to give access to the ball joint so as not to require hub removal. Again, came off really easy using the impact. Lower ball joint removed.

Here is where my first real problem comes in. I tried to remove the nut for the strut rod. It came off half way then stopped. Even with my impact it wouldn't budge either way. When I used my ratchet with a pipe on it I wound up loosening the outer nut. Not a loss as I think I can remove the strut rod with the lower control arm and worry about it when it's out. Hopefully it's not too hard to remove. Have it soaking overnight, but the threads didn't look bad so I'm not quite sure what happened. Hopefully tomorrow morning I'll have time to get the torsion bar clip out and remove the LCA nut and push the LCA back and out. We will see how that goes.

Hopefully the rest of my parts make it here this week so I can get it all finished by the weekend