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#1
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![]() Mostly as they needed it, 200,000 miles and all on the car. Strut assy., lower control arms (bad bushing on the pass. side, did both) Bearing, CV half axle on the pass. side also bad bearings and did the brakes all around. It has a shimmy or vibration but was not an unbalanced tire kinda vibration. Well after all that work, still had it but it was less, fuck. Well the last week of March was a visit to SC to see the Sailor with the younger boy. Then a week in Japan, a week in Korea home but then off to Cleveland. So this week I have had the car up on stand and have the rear end tore apart. I found the offending component. But some pictures for the pic whores out there... While the bearings were 'okay'; I replaced them. 200k on them. Had to press them out but needed to make some fixtures to do it. The dust shields for the brakes cannot be removed with the bearing still on the knuckles, yeah! Fucking engineers. So it I made a box frame from some tubing I had in the resource pile. Also I made a punch with a pilot to hold thing in place. I took all the screws out holding the dust shield in place to get behind it to the knuckle casting for support to press out the bearing. Only 1/2 plate would fit and the box frame is 16"x16" ID. Now 1/2" plate supported over a 16" gets springy, with a 20 ton press... It got a bit sporty, but I got the bearings out without damage to anything, in particular myself.
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Shade "Prepare to defend yourselves." -- Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley, Ia Drang Valley |
#2
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So the upper bushing (really more of a horizontal ball joint) was the
offending component. Both were bad. This is connects the knuckle to the upper control arm. They are a 0.010" interference fit, WTF. I removed the old ones with my C-frame press, they came out hard, but no damage. Putting the new ones in became a bit of a challenge, I tried a few methods none worked, did a little damage to the cast aluminum knuckle. But I was able to remove the burr I raised. What finally worked, I took a piece of round stock, OD was ~1.900" I drilled and then bored out the end to an ID of 1.633". This passed over rubber seal and wire retainer and sat on the body of the bushing and then I was able to press the bushing into the hole with the press. I really use the lathe a lot for making special tooling for projects like this. I really comes in handy!
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Shade "Prepare to defend yourselves." -- Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley, Ia Drang Valley |
#3
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So pressing in the bushing required a second set of hands as the knuckle
really needed to be supported so Matthew assisted when he got home from work, he is a good kid.
__________________
Shade "Prepare to defend yourselves." -- Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley, Ia Drang Valley |
#4
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Shade. Sometimes I think it is just easier to buy the whole assembly from RA
Then it is to have to go through all that extra work to replace some parts. Only because sometimes IMO the savings is moot, compared to the labor-intensive repair work. By the way... Nice job, I like the way you are getting it done and able to take pics too... ![]() ![]() |
#5
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![]() Quote:
I'm just finishing up a repair project that required me to make a special puller--technically a "pusher" since it works backwards. I took a bunch of pictures and plan to post them up over the weekend. And no offense meant with the "nitwit engineer" comment. First, because you're a chemical engineer and nobody understands what you're talking about anyway. ![]() ![]() ![]()
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Keith Measure twice and cut once...or...wait, was that the other way around? |
#6
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I will preface my story with the disclosure that I have had 3 engineers in my family, one mechanical, one civil and one chemical,so have no particular bias toward engineers in general.
I will say that I have to agree with your thoughts on engineers who don't have their heads on straight. I had to deal with engineers frequently in my years on the maintenance end of my career, and some of them were pretty good, while others were a royal pain in the ass, one in particular that I tried not to have much to do with, but couldn't avoid totally. I also used to live next door to a civil engineer many years ago who was a nice guy, very smart but when it came to laying out his driveway for getting concrete poured, the guy down the street with the grade 6 education who was going to do the work was much smarter. To me, that particular experience proved that practical experience can trump book learning at times, no matter how smart the person with the book learning is.
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Miller Thunderbolt XL AC/DC Hobart Handler 190 Angle grinders,14" chop saw,Hobart medium duty O/A set Some air tools,fair selection of hand tools,and other "stuff" ____________________________________________ The difference between genius and stupidity, is that genius has limits. Albert Einstein |
#7
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![]() Quote:
It was considered. And the bushing was less than $10...
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Shade "Prepare to defend yourselves." -- Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley, Ia Drang Valley |
#8
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![]() Quote:
Quote:
overpaid plumbers anyway. Kinda like Mechanical Engineers are over educated mechanics... PS. I am a Chemist, I actually understand chemistry...
__________________
Shade "Prepare to defend yourselves." -- Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley, Ia Drang Valley |
#9
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![]() Quote:
Because I would not try to find it anywhere else... as then it would no doubt "not be cost-effective"... But 10 bucks for the bushing. well, that's for sure a no brainer there even for me. Usually, I run into. Are the parts are sometimes just shy by a few bucks of just buying a whole assembly. Maybe not everything but when its front end work it usually turns out that way and it saves me a lot of time in the long run over buying the individual bushings and ball joints etc... Although for even that sort of stuff RA is the best place to get the parts from over the local Parts House... and even then For me, it's more for the sake of time-saving than anything else. |
#10
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![]() Quote:
Nobody has the whole assy. even listed. I am sure Ford has it but you know they are pricing it through the roof. Even when I am working on my own shit. I look at assy. pricing vs. parts and have to ask myself is it worth the time, to save $X. This time when I did the front shock assy. I did got the parts route. Not so much as to save a few bucks, about $100 in savings. But I did it so I could teach my son, Matt, how to do it. If it was just me. I would have bought the assy. from RA and saved the time. But you cant pass on a teachable moment.
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Shade "Prepare to defend yourselves." -- Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley, Ia Drang Valley |
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