Howard, is that Carter info posted somewhere in the Literature and Manuals section here on the site? That is a real "good to know" piece.

pictures are good. I'm taking a zillion pix as I go on my car, sometimes I don't even know what I'm looking at yet but maybe it'll help later, like this. plus you can ask the experts here!

Here is the special tool needed to spread the upper arm apart the proper length to get all the threads on the bushings to line up for torque. Well OK, I just used a piece of threaded rod with some nuts and a couple big washers, but it works.

These bushings are torqued at somewhere around 95 ft lbs, that's a lot and I'll have to check to see if my biggest torque wrench even goes that high. Airplanes get stuff torqued in INCH lbs, I'm going to need bigger hammers to work on this car.

Attach file:

---

  (40.53 KB)

Getting front suspension parts cleaned up since it's been too cold to work in the hangar. All the threaded bushings look good, the steering knuckles seem a little noisy (like some grit in the bearings) which isn't surprising considering the amount of hardened dirt and petrified grease. Probably get some new bearings for those to be safe. And I'll need all new rubber pieces of course.

Someone must have been into this suspension before, the spring "insulators" PN 14.008 were installed under the springs, in the lower arms instead of on top - so they were pretty corroded and filled with rocks and dirt. This meant that the springs weren't fully seated in the indentations in the lower arms. Also I identified the rubber pieces as remains of some spring rubbers, that had been inserted into the coils. There is some lettering on the parts that says "RUB-R-RIDE", and "MFG BY RADIATOR something".

Attach file:

---

  (31.43 KB)

I looked at this kit in their site also, it looks pretty complete. One question I have though, would it be an improvement over the stock setup if the brakes were kept manual? I'm not really thinking of adding power brakes.

This afternoon I got after the front suspension, which I had been dreading a bit since I've never dealt with these. First I had to chisel all the dirt and fossilized grease off so I could get to the nuts and bolts. Then the shocks and sway bar came out. I got a jack under the lower control arms to compress the spring a bit, then removed the lower arm bolts. I had to use a second jack to play with the car height a bit so that there was enough room to take the load off the spring to get it out.

After those were out of the way then I removed the 2 bolts that hold the top arm to the frame. These thread into the frame, except one of the bolts on the driver's side where the frame threads are stripped and someone had substituted a longer bolt and a nut. No idea if this had been repaired before or if it was a factory workaround?

Also there were the remains of some rubber pieces that were in the bottom if the shock mount area, inside the spring. I forgot to take a picture of these, but they were on both sides.

Attach file:

---

  (51.42 KB)


  (37.67 KB)


  (64.52 KB)

Gotcha, thanks David

OK, I have my front brakes apart and I have the orange and yellow springs. The brake shoes are exactly the same front and back, and the springs were assembled the same on both wheels (looking at the brakes after pulling the drum off) - orange left, yellow right. So that means that on the LH wheel the orange spring was toward the front, and on the RH wheel it was toward the back.

So, which shoe would be the "primary" and it would get the smaller (orange) spring? This is on a '52 200, the parts list shows the same PN springs for both by the way to make it more confusing.

Howard, the tank heater is electric, there was a cord hanging out of the grill. The hose was plumbed from the fitting by the starter and then teed into the normal hose over near the trans cooler area.

The fuel pump comment just means that there is a lot of dirt and old grease covering the pump. I normally work on airplanes so I'm not used to that much dirt, amazing to me that stuff still works that way sometimes. Like for instance the front suspension - the airplane mechanic in me wants to disassemble the whole works, make it all new, and put it back. But I imagine if I just clean it up, pull the frozen zerks and use a little bit of heat to flow the old grease that stuff would be good to go as long as I don't detect any play in the bushings etc.

Anybody have thoughts about what you had to do for that stuff?

Attach file:

---

  (33.07 KB)

Where were we, oh yeah - time to create some access to the engine bay. So with some help from my son I removed all the bits needed and then we got the front fenders off the car. The canvas skirts that are attached to the inner fender splash panels are petrified, so we'll need to stitch up some new ones at some point. I'll have to try to clean these enough to be able to lay them out for patterns.

And now we can see the engine, notice on the left side the extra heater hose for the tank heater - that is one way to keep the engine warm for cold weather starts. Folks mostly use headbolt or pad heaters now, so when you see a car with an extension cord going to it that's what is going on. I won't be keeping this so that fitting by the starter will be replaced by the normal plug.

On the right side, I think that we're missing a vent tube from the valve cover. And there seems to be some kind of stalagmite where a fuel pump should go.

Attach file:

---

  (28.97 KB)


  (26.31 KB)


  (48.02 KB)


  (43.15 KB)