Hello,
Going to be starting my steering suspension rebuild. My first questions are:
How to remove idler and pitman arm from center link? I think I need a puller for the pitman, what about the idler?
Tie rod ends from spindle and center link?
Steering box from column. I have an early 67, no rag joint. I would like to remove the bon to clean up and finish the engine compartment in that area. Any tune up tips for the box?

How to remove Upper control arm shaft from the control arm?
Lower control arms (are these going to be the same problem as rear leaf bushings, bolt frozen in bushing)?

Have new moog pitman arm, idler, inner and outer tie rods & sleeves, upper ball joints and shafts, lower bushings (still trying to find joints, 620 one inch lowering springs, KYB gas shocks. Need to get a sway bar, will a 1 1/8" sway bar be too stiff with this set up? Am I missing anything else for the fron suspension/steering?
Thanks

 

Hey, I can't answer all of your questions but I can probably offer some useful advice. The Pitman arm is the one thing I did not touch on both the cougar and the mustang when I rebuilt their suspensions. I left the Pitman arm to center link connection as it was.

For a really good overview of how to SAFELY dissassemble and reassemble your full suspension, I highly recommend an instructional video called "Rebuilding Your Front End" by racecar builder Greg Colletti. The setup he is working on is spring on lower arm as opposed to spring on upper arm for the old mustangs and cougars, but you'll get a good feel for what all you have to do and the order in which you remove and then reinstall parts. Colletti used a pickle fork for the tie rods and the ball joints, some people say "no don't use those", sounds familiar, doesn't it. I used a pickle fork for everything on the mustang. The deal is that the fork has one flat face, parallel to the tool itself, and an angled face. Put the flat face on the part you *don't* want to muck up. So for ball joints, the flat face would go on the spindle, while for the tie rod / center link, put the flat face on the center link.

For the cougar I used a ball joint tool similar to the one on the right hand side of this link:

http://www.jcwhitney.com/webapp/wcs/...atalogId=10101

That's a cheap price and probably cheap tools as well. The one I got is made by a company called OTC, I think I paid 25 bucks for it but it's worth its weight in gold. For the cougar I didn't even free the ball joints before removing the spring. I just
removed the spring first, then unbolted the whole thing, upper and lower arms, spindle, strut rod, and then removed the ball joints using the tool. You may have to finagle it a little bit to get the tool to seat properly, but once you do, it's just twist, twist,
twist, pop... very anticlimactic and much easier than using a pickle fork. Do disassemble and then reassemble one side at a
time, that way you can look at the other side to make sure it's all back together right.

For what it's worth, the toughest thing to remove on both cars for me was the front nut for the strut rods. Frozen pretty bad on
both cars. I ended up using about a half a can of PB Blaster on them, and finally only got them free when I slid a 6 foot pipe
over a 1/2 inch drive ratchet. It felt like I was just twisting the whole thing in the bushing at first, but after a turn or so I knew I had the thing freed.

If you have ever removed and replaced a spring before, well good, you know what you are doing. If not, I think it would be really good if you could find somebody who could walk you through the job the first time. I know it's a cliche but these things can and have killed people. I had a friend with me just so he could eyeball the compressor installation and say "yep, you're good to go". Turns out he needed to leave for his family's dinner and I took the spring out myself anyway, but it was good to have a second experienced set of eyes to take a look at it and make sure I wasn't setting myself up for disaster.

If you haven't removed coil springs on one of these old cars before, here is something to pay attention to. The old stock springs are REALLY tall, like 17 inches, when uncompressed. After you have removed the shock and jacked the car up and have it on stands, with the suspension at full travel, the spring is still compressed something like 2-3 inches. You might only need to compress it another 2 inches or so to get it out of there, but remember the total compression on the spring is more like 4-5 inches. The very first time I uncompressed a spring, I could feel the tool starting to turn easier and I started to relax. And then I ran out of threads on the tool. Probably the last inch or so of spring compression let go with a THWACK, the wrench flew across the garage at like 200 mph, and I was then checking to see if I still had 10 fingers. Something to watch out for. In the video you'll see the proper way to hold the spring while uncompressing it, and using that method probably saved me some serious pain at the least. The main gist is to NEVER have the ends of the spring pointed toward a person.
Colletti just kneeled on the side of the spring to hold it while unloading it. I always wear mechanic's knee pads when I work
and that probably saved me from a very painful knee at the least.

Brother, I just went through all of my morning coffee writing this one up. But it is more fun than reading about who is shelling
whom this morning. Good luck with the rebuild!

 

thanks very much for your insight. Regarding the pitman arm, isn't that a wear item that should be replaced?

 

Well, I am not an engineer or a professional builder or anything like that, but on my 2 old cars the Pitman arm is a pretty substantial piece of steel. To me it fell in the category of "examine for wear, damage, or looseness and replace if needed". Same thing for the center link and strut rods. I left the original Pitman arm and center link in both cars. On the mustang one of the strut rods was bent, so I replaced both of them. But on the cougar they both looked straight and solid so I reused them.

I drive the cars somewhat enthusiastically on the back roads here, but it's not exactly like I built the car for the track. If you are building a track car, maybe best to replace everything for peace of mind. Oh yeah, also, for both cars the upper A-arms were not rebuildable, there were cracks and / or abnormal wear for both of them. But I know some people who were able to reuse their A-arms...

 

There is no reason to use a ball joint removal tool, just hit it with a really big hammer. I'm not kidding, I used an 8lb sledge hammer.

http://www.mustangsplus.com/tech/sho...shockfall1.htm

 

Yeah, I read the exact same article at some point. I used a hammer when I rebuilt the mustang, but I only had a measly 3 pounder. One of them was stubborn and took like an hour. At the time I didn't feel like getting cleaned up and running out to Lowe's for an 8 lb. Also the inner tie rod ends were stubborn, just tough to get a good angle on them with the pickle fork. I suggested the tool since it made the tie rod ends and ball joints extremely simple jobs. It's not like it's a "must have" tool though...