Re: 51Packard's....51 Packard
Posted by Charles On 2010/10/3 22:10:43
10-03-10
First part of the day was getting pissed off at my air compressor. Apparently, the electrical to my garage is not up to par and when I was trying to use my new media blaster with the lights on in the garage to see, I would trip the circuit breaker. Going to have to figure something else out. I'll probably need to hook a shop vac up to it too, because it clouds up pretty quick. Right now, I have the hole for attaching a dust collector taped off because glass beads were coming out of it during use.
After messing with that for a while, I continued to scrape gunk off the suspension. I looked for oven cleaner at Walmart, but I didn't see it in the cleaning product section and I didn't have time to hunt for it.
Now that I can see where some of the bolts were, I thought I should just disassemble the suspension to clean it easier. First was the brake backing plate. I just removed the nuts and the bolts with spacers. Left the wheel cylinder attached. I was hoping to reuse it, but I'll have to look at it more carefully. Removing the brake backing plate also removed the steering arm.
Next I jacked up the bottom of the suspension to take pressure off of it and removed the two upper nuts on the top of the steering knuckle. Couldn't get the bolt out though, even after removing the bolt for the pinch connection and prying with a large screwdriver.
Failing that, I tackled the shock. That was really stubborn! Had to use channel lock pliers on the body of the shock to keep it from spinning while hitting the bottom nut with my impact wrench. Once that was off, I tried the top with a screwdriver in the slot and a box wrench on the bolt. No way was that coming off! Put some vice grips on the tightest setting I could get to close on the shocks shaft and used the impact at full power on the nut. That did the job.
Then I removed the nut and unscrewed the bolt holding the lower section together. I lowered the suspension again thinking the spring would be free, but I forgot about the front stabilizer. Jacked it back up and used a socket and breaker bar with a 4' piece of steel tube on it to removed the nuts and bolts holding the mount to the frame. I was hoping to break it off because it wasn't budging, but the sucker broke loose! Packard sure used some quality hardware. Every time I work on the suspension of a modern car, I usually break at least one bolt.
That still didn't get it off and I had to work on my daily driver so I stopped for the day. Later on I read the manual and apparently, I have to remove a clip holding the arm to the lower suspension. Once I remove that, I think the spring will be free.
Everything had nice, clean grease on it. I was amazed how little trouble I had getting most of the bolts out. Still having trouble with that upper one. The manual says to use the camber/caster wrench to remove it, but it looks like a regular threaded bolt shaft to me.
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First part of the day was getting pissed off at my air compressor. Apparently, the electrical to my garage is not up to par and when I was trying to use my new media blaster with the lights on in the garage to see, I would trip the circuit breaker. Going to have to figure something else out. I'll probably need to hook a shop vac up to it too, because it clouds up pretty quick. Right now, I have the hole for attaching a dust collector taped off because glass beads were coming out of it during use.
After messing with that for a while, I continued to scrape gunk off the suspension. I looked for oven cleaner at Walmart, but I didn't see it in the cleaning product section and I didn't have time to hunt for it.
Now that I can see where some of the bolts were, I thought I should just disassemble the suspension to clean it easier. First was the brake backing plate. I just removed the nuts and the bolts with spacers. Left the wheel cylinder attached. I was hoping to reuse it, but I'll have to look at it more carefully. Removing the brake backing plate also removed the steering arm.
Next I jacked up the bottom of the suspension to take pressure off of it and removed the two upper nuts on the top of the steering knuckle. Couldn't get the bolt out though, even after removing the bolt for the pinch connection and prying with a large screwdriver.
Failing that, I tackled the shock. That was really stubborn! Had to use channel lock pliers on the body of the shock to keep it from spinning while hitting the bottom nut with my impact wrench. Once that was off, I tried the top with a screwdriver in the slot and a box wrench on the bolt. No way was that coming off! Put some vice grips on the tightest setting I could get to close on the shocks shaft and used the impact at full power on the nut. That did the job.
Then I removed the nut and unscrewed the bolt holding the lower section together. I lowered the suspension again thinking the spring would be free, but I forgot about the front stabilizer. Jacked it back up and used a socket and breaker bar with a 4' piece of steel tube on it to removed the nuts and bolts holding the mount to the frame. I was hoping to break it off because it wasn't budging, but the sucker broke loose! Packard sure used some quality hardware. Every time I work on the suspension of a modern car, I usually break at least one bolt.
That still didn't get it off and I had to work on my daily driver so I stopped for the day. Later on I read the manual and apparently, I have to remove a clip holding the arm to the lower suspension. Once I remove that, I think the spring will be free.
Everything had nice, clean grease on it. I was amazed how little trouble I had getting most of the bolts out. Still having trouble with that upper one. The manual says to use the camber/caster wrench to remove it, but it looks like a regular threaded bolt shaft to me.
Attach file:
(183.02 KB)
(231.64 KB)
(191.10 KB)
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