72 Duster Resurrection

[Duster Captain]

Yeah the coating has to go in the lower tapered holes. I'd probably carefully use a round or semi round file. There are powder coat dissolvers out there. Never tried them but I think Eastwood may carry it.
You should be able to find a local powder coaster in your area and have the other one done. Or sent it off to Leanna at Phoenix Powder In TN. (She's a member and would NOT coat the holes.) Or clean and paint.
Last time I installed UBJ's I temporarily installed the UCA's in the subframe before carefully threaded them in and tightening with the big socket and a cheater pipe on the breaker bar. If done correctly they are perfectly fine without welding. And, they are somewhat fail safe because if the threads give out the upper arm is still captivated. Chrysler built many millions of cars and they didn't show up on recall lists.
Many have been ruined by auto machine shops who throw them in a hydraulic press and drive them out thereby ruining them. That is a case where spot welding would work to save the parts.

Thanks for the info, I think I'll try and sandblast out the powdercoating. If its a good coating that may be a struggle.

Hopefully I will not have to weld the ball joints in.

 

[Duster Captain]

Got some more work done yesterday.

Driver's side spindle and UCA removed.

Unbolting shock from LCA.

Removed torsion bar retaining ring, unbolted strut rod on both ends and smacked LCA from the front as recommended by moparmat. LCA and torsion bar both slid backwards easily allowing the LCA to be removed.

This splash guard thing was in my way so I took it off. It may not be going back on... Also note the black slime residue on the right. Thats from the old voltage regulator's silicone guts melting out and running down. It was like that when I got the car.

LCA out.

LCA bushing looks like it gave up a while ago. Glad I decided to get all new poly bushings.

Question time:

How do you remove the LCA bolt? Press out?

This is the "new" LCA from the 74 duster that I want to use. Looks like someone really abused that interior metal lip. Probably from trying to remove the old bolt...It looks pretty chipped up and there is a piece that has shattered and is gone. Is this a terminal problem? Compared to this, my old one in the previous pic looks pretty good...

Driver's side almost done.

Looks like I have a leak in my steering box? This car has power steering also. Any thoughts?

Starting passenger side. Brake line disconnected.

Removing UCA bolts with the rarely implemented wrench kicking maneuver.

Tie rod end.

UCA disconnected from frame.

Thats it for now. I am expecting lots of parts in the mail in the next few days and will have more time this weekend to get some work done on it, so stay tuned.

 

[CudaChick1968]

If you sand blast the powder off, it might work ... but you'll probably tear up the surrounding areas too. Whether it comes off at all is going to depend on a well-done job versus a hack job. Like painting a car, great prep is everything.

They make Powder Coating Stripper. It's not usually available to the consumer in affordable quantities but you might be able to find some on ebay or something (I get 5 gallon containers for $150 plus shipping here PowderStrip Powder Coating Paint Stripper). If you're "lucky," aircraft stripper can work too but, again, it depends on how well the job was done and whether it adheres. If the parts were completely covered, it's fairly likely it was a rookie job and it might be under- or over-cured which will make it come off easier.

Thanks to @KosmicKuda for the mention! (Phoenix Powder is in Jersey and has nothing to do with my shop by the way ... but your heart is sure in the right place!!!! << hugs >>)

 

[Duster Captain]

If you sand blast the powder off, it might work ... but you'll probably tear up the surrounding areas too. Whether it comes off at all is going to depend on a well-done job versus a hack job. Like painting a car, great prep is everything.

They make Powder Coating Stripper. It's not usually available to the consumer in affordable quantities but you might be able to find some on ebay or something (I get 5 gallon containers for $150 plus shipping here PowderStrip Powder Coating Paint Stripper). If you're "lucky," aircraft stripper can work too but, again, it depends on how well the job was done and whether it adheres. If the parts were completely covered, it's fairly likely it was a rookie job and it might be under- or over-cured which will make it come off easier.

Thanks to @KosmicKuda for the mention! (Phoenix Powder is in Jersey and has nothing to do with my shop by the way ... but your heart is sure in the right place!!!! << hugs >>)

Hello Leanna! Thanks for chiming in, sounds like you are the right lady to talk to about coatings! Totally dig the work I see on your website, very nice. If I ever get real serious about this I may email you...

The more I see, the more I think the powder job on the control arms I bought was......sub standard.

What would you say is the most effective way to strip the powder out of these areas if you had to pick? Sandblast? Stripper? Wire wheel? I am not a stickler for perfection or "show quality", so I dont care about possibly chewing up the rest of the coating.

 

[CudaChick1968]

Hello Leanna! Thanks for chiming in, sounds like you are the right lady to talk to about coatings! Totally dig the work I see on your website, very nice. If I ever get real serious about this I may email you...

The more I see, the more I think the powder job on the control arms I bought was......sub standard.

What would you say is the most effective way to strip the powder out of these areas if you had to pick? Sandblast? Stripper? Wire wheel? I am not a stickler for perfection or "show quality", so I dont care about possibly chewing up the rest of the coating.

First off, thank you both for checking out some of my work and for the awesome compliment!

As far as the "effectiveness" goes, since your suspension parts aren't really a huge amount of surface area and it seems you're a pretty hands-on kind of guy, you might consider just burning it all off (or at least getting it really crispy) with a propane flame thrower, wire brush off the bigger chunks and then blast off any remnants, and start over from scratch with a spray bomb paint job.

Being in a larger metro area like Houston, you might even be able to find a large job shop with a real burn-off oven which will completely remove all the existing powder and leave you with bare metal. Not living in a large metro area (Greenfield is out in the sticks with the cows and corn lol), I can't say how much that might cost you to get done but would bet it would save you a lot of time and hassle, purchasing a bunch of powder stripper you won't use or going through a ton of sand paper or wire wheels. If you have a dedicated shop oven (or access to one at a friend's house), you can try heating the parts up to as high as the oven goes and leave them in there for a few hours. It will basically overcure the powder and can sometimes make it easier to blast off but, again, it depends on how good the prep was when it was powder coated originally.

You already know the chemical strippers are costly. Sanding it is going to take forever. A wire wheel will be faster but it can also destroy your wheels really quickly and leave them all gummy once they cool off (and they'll pretty much be unusable afterwards). You'll have to just weigh the cost and time involved in each method and see if it might be best to farm them out.

I hope this helps some.

 

[Duster Captain]

First off, thank you both for checking out some of my work and for the awesome compliment!

As far as the "effectiveness" goes, since your suspension parts aren't really a huge amount of surface area and it seems you're a pretty hands-on kind of guy, you might consider just burning it all off (or at least getting it really crispy) with a propane flame thrower, wire brush off the bigger chunks and then blast off any remnants, and start over from scratch with a spray bomb paint job.

Being in a larger metro area like Houston, you might even be able to find a large job shop with a real burn-off oven which will completely remove all the existing powder and leave you with bare metal. Not living in a large metro area (Greenfield is out in the sticks with the cows and corn lol), I can't say how much that might cost you to get done but would bet it would save you a lot of time and hassle, purchasing a bunch of powder stripper you won't use or going through a ton of sand paper or wire wheels. If you have a dedicated shop oven (or access to one at a friend's house), you can try heating the parts up to as high as the oven goes and leave them in there for a few hours. It will basically overcure the powder and can sometimes make it easier to blast off but, again, it depends on how good the prep was when it was powder coated originally.

You already know the chemical strippers are costly. Sanding it is going to take forever. A wire wheel will be faster but it can also destroy your wheels really quickly and leave them all gummy once they cool off (and they'll pretty much be unusable afterwards). You'll have to just weigh the cost and time involved in each method and see if it might be best to farm them out.

I hope this helps some.

Thanks for all the good info, thats what I needed. I like the idea of cooking the old powder off. I'll see what I have access to that could do that. There are also local shops around also...

 

[Duster Captain]

Switching gears, I am also have an issue with my brake system rebuild.

I bought a new complete brake line set from inline tube for a 72 all drum duster (what my car originally was).

I know I need an adjustable proportioning valve to set the pressure distribution for the new disk brakes that are going on my front. I also would like it to be able to dial in disk brakes on the back in the future. So I bought this wilwood adj prop valve:

Wilwood Brake Proportioning Valves 260-11179

I am now removing the old brake lines to put my new ones in. How do I easily integrate the wilwood prop valve into my new brake line set? The wilwood is meant to be mounted next to the master cylinder but that would mean having to hack up my new brake line set to run the front and back lines up to the master cylinder area. They currently run to the stock distribution valve, my new line set will want to do the same thing.

So can I just replace the stock distribution block with my adj prop valve and mount it in the same location? See picture:

I will have to get some brake line adapters because the wilwood valve has all small fittings and the brake lines on the car come in three different sizes.....but this should all work I think. Thoughts, anyone?

Have not heard from @moparmat2000 in a while. Everything ok with you man?

 

[moparmat2000]

Been extremely busy at work, also for some reason your thread hasnt popped up in my alerts until now. Show a pic of your new lower control arm bushings. Are these just the inserts? or do they have the inner and outer shells?

Getting the old LCA mounting pin out. Get a bernsomatic propane torch cylinder, and heat the crap out of the pin and the surrounding rubber then put a screwdriver in the arm at the hex end, and tap the pin out. The old bushings inner sleeve will still be pressed on the pin.

After you post pix of your LCA bushings, i can explain how to proceed from there. On the damaged LCA thats powdercoated. If those arms dont have swaybar mounts, i'd just reuse the ones off your car. I believe the tapered hole in these is the same from disc brake and drum brake. If i'm wrong on this let others chime in.

LCAs came out easy with my method though didnt they.

 

[moparmat2000]

I'd bend the lines to fit it and mount it where the stocker is as long as you have access to adjust it. Once its set for brake bias, you will probably never mess with its adjustment again, unless you decide to run autocross periodically and want to temp change up the biasing for that. I am assuming its thread is SAE as well.

What did this little gem run you anyways?

 

[Duster Captain]

My notifications are finiky sometimes too, not sure what that's about.

LCAs came out easy with my method though didnt they.

Oh yeah, that is a solid method for sure, thanks. Not sure how I would have done that without that info....


I got the sleeveless LCA bushings:

On the damaged LCA thats powdercoated. If those arms dont have swaybar mounts, i'd just reuse the ones off your car. I believe the tapered hole in these is the same from disc brake and drum brake. If i'm wrong on this let others chime in.

That is what I am thinking also. With the sketchy powdercoating job and now significant damage to the metal in the hex area... probably easier to just re-use my old ones. I'll try a test fit by hand for the ball joints and see how they feel in the tapered area.

Getting the old LCA mounting pin out. Get a bernsomatic propane torch cylinder, and heat the crap out of the pin and the surrounding rubber then put a screwdriver in the arm at the hex end, and tap the pin out. The old bushings inner sleeve will still be pressed on the pin.

Interesting. I bet someone messed up doing that on my new LCA's and thats why they are beat up on the inside.

 

[Duster Captain]

I'd bend the lines to fit it and mount it where the stocker is as long as you have access to adjust it. Once its set for brake bias, you will probably never mess with its adjustment again, unless you decide to run autocross periodically and want to temp change up the biasing for that. I am assuming its thread is SAE as well.

What did this little gem run you anyways?

I think the stock location is best so my new lines will go to it. The wilwood has all 3/8 SAE ports. I need to get adapters to be able to attach the three different sizes of fittings on the new brake line set.

The wilwood adj prop valve and mounting braket go for $120 at the big sites. I got one for $90 on ebay. Turns out the mounting bracket it worthless in my case because it wants to put the valve by the master cylinder....

It might be overkill, but I figured there will be two major changes in the near future: upgrade to v8 and rear disk brakes on an explorer rear end. I'd like to have a good quality adjustable valve to be able to dial my brakes in after each major change to the car's weight distribution, engine output, etc.

We'll see.

 

[moparmat2000]

Looks like your new LCA bushings are inserts without metal inner and outer sleeves. Burn the rubber out of the LCAs leave the outer shell from the old rubber bushing intact, leave the inner sleeve thats pressed into the LCA pins intact. Grease up the bushings, by hand press into the arms, by hand press the LCA pins with the inner sleeves still on them right back into the arms. Easy peasy.

Had the prev owner of your LBJ upper arms not knocked the outer shells out of the one upper arm prior to powdercoating, prothane sells the bushing only, like your lowers are, and you could do the same thing burning the rubber out, reusing the inner sleeves and leaving the outer shells alone.

 

[moparmat2000]

Also when you slide the LCAs back in place, and torsion bars back in place, use lots of wheel bearing grease on the tapered pins and torsion bar hexes so water doesnt get in there and lay causing it all to rust and seize up otherwise if you have to take it apart next time it might not come apart very easily.

 

[moparmat2000]

If you ever replace LCA bushings on this suspension system w the vulcanized rubber ones or poly ones with inner and outer sleeves heres a trick so the new ones dont tear like the old ones did. The LCA pins are tapered, this means they wont turn once they are bolted in solid.

Install the arms and everything, but leave the nuts for the LCA pins loose enough for the pin to turn. Get the adjusters tightened enough that the car will hold its own weight. Take the car off the jack and adjust your torsion bar adjusters on a flat surface, bouncing the car up and down on the bumper letting it settle and measuring from the ground up to the center of the wheel arches on both sides. Repeat adjusting and jouncing until all is level on both sides, then with the car on the ground, crawl under the front and tighten down the LCA pin nuts. What this does is make sure the bushing in a neutral position (not twisted), and then allowing for equal amounts of twisting force for up and down travel.

 

[Duster Captain]

Been really busy but I am still here.

Appreciate the info on the control arm stuff. That all sounds good to me. I will probably re-use my original 72 LCAs.

Parts have been arriving steadily in the mail. I now have all the parts I need to rebuild the front end and front brakes.

I removed the old master cylinder. I think it must have been leaking at its connection to the firewall based on the extra rusted paint all around and below it.

What is this thin plastic washer thing? I'm not sure if my new master cylinder came with one..

I finally won the battle with the ball joints on the draglink and got it out of the car. It was a spirited struggle with the pickle fork and sledge. I broke the ball joints then removed the pitman and idler arm.

Now I need to start cleaning everything and putting it all back in with new parts. Stay tuned.

 

[moparmat2000]

XRF all the way!!!

 

[Duster Captain]

It's been a while, but I am making slow progress on the duster.

I took apart one of my 74 front disk brake bearings. Pics below.

Removed dust cap. Seeing rust color in grease...

Inside of dust cap. Full of old grease with rust color. It probably got water in it?

Nice and rusty in there.

There is a small flat/chipped spot (black spot in picture) on at least one roller that I dont like.

Inside of the outer race. Most of this felt like junk sitting on the surface that will wipe away, but that roller was chipped..

Looks like I should replace my front inner and outer bearing on both sides. The outer rings on both bearing are pressed in correct? I see that some people drive them in with big sockets and a hammer. Anyone who's done this have any tips?

 

[moparmat2000]

Outer races yes, they are pressed or driven in. I knocked my old ones out with a steel punch, but drove the new ones in w a brass drift punch so they wouldent get marred up.

I got a set of 74 up rotors already machined w good not rusty bearings, and decent studs. Was asking $50 for the pair plus the shipping. Road trip?

 

[Duster Captain]

Outer races yes, they are pressed or driven in. I knocked my old ones out with a steel punch, but drove the new ones in w a brass drift punch so they wouldent get marred up.

I got a set of 74 up rotors already machined w good not rusty bearings, and decent studs. Was asking $50 for the pair plus the shipping. Road trip?

View attachment 1715106898

Thanks for the info on the bearings.

Im tempted by your rotors and I think that's a great price, but I'm going to take a shot at replacing my bearings first. Half of the "fun" of this kind of project in my opinion is learning new tricks. If I get fed up with them I might come back to you on that!

 

[moparmat2000]

The bearings still need to be cleaned and repacked on these too, but i looked at them, and they arent rusty like those you have are.

The fresh machining on these is sprayed over w a cosmoline type substance to prevent flash rust on them. Requires laquer thinner or brake kleen and a bunch of clean paper towels to get it off.

 

[Duster Captain]

The bearings still need to be cleaned and repacked on these too, but i looked at them, and they arent rusty like those you have are.

The fresh machining on these is sprayed over w a cosmoline type substance to prevent flash rust on them. Requires laquer thinner or brake kleen and a bunch of clean paper towels to get it off.

Sounds like you did those the right way. If I mess mine up trying to replace the bearings I'll be sending you a message about those.

 

[moparmat2000]

Wheres the duster captain been? Maybe you should have your thread moved to the members restorations section.

 

[moparmat2000]

Hows duster captain? Prob should get your thread moved to members restorations.

 

[Duster Captain]

Im still alive, been very busy lately. I have made progress on the Duster, I will post an update soon.

I agree, this has clearly turned into a restoration instead of just a slant 6 thread, so I think moving is a good idea. Im new to the whole forum thing, how do I go about getting this moved to restorations?

 

[moparmat2000]

Get with one of the moderators on the site, and ask them to move it for you.