Moving on to Rear Bushings for now

Posted by Bob E. On 2018/12/27 22:07:16

I spent a lot of time trying to remedy the broken screws in the primary throttle shaft. I was able to to drill out one and retap it successfully. But the other one is giving me fits and I am doing more damage to the throttle shaft than anything. I have a drill press but no good way to hold the shaft and to prevent the small drill bits from skating across the rounded surface. Seems like replacements are not readily available so trying to find someone to do the drilling for me or to replace/repair the shaft and maybe see if it needs rebushing etc. My reason for taking it apart was to try to reset the throttle valves to see if I could address why I couldn't get an idle below ~700rpm and that if I covered only the secondary side of the air horn, the engine would rev higher then stall (I was thinking that maybe the primaries or secondaries weren't centered properly so I was getting more of an opening at idle than proper).
Frustration has moved me to another project for now, I will get back to the carb as soon as I can figure out how/who to drill out the remaining hole.

So moving on the replacing the rear bushings. I replaced all the fronts with new ones from Max. After reading Dwight's article in the Cormorant last year and talking to him on the phone, I ordered his rear-only kit to give it a go. I also decided to do something different and properly use this project blog to document what I am currently doing vs just posting when I have problems..

Here is a picture of the bushings I received. They look very nice in red. There are the 4 uppers and 4 lowers for the arm as well as 10 of the same bushings for the Watts linkage

Most of the motivation to replace the bushings came from me shearing off the nut for passenger side Watts linkage stud (see post #16 in this blog). I thought I was being careful the 2nd time with judicious use of PB Blaster and heat, but I sheared off the driver's side too...

My plan is to not remove the front bolt/bushings from the "rear axle torque (or support) arms" to not deal with the load arm torque and Dwight's suggestion that the forward bushings for these arms usu don't need replacing.

This may simplify some things, but also makes cleaning up the arms (removing rust, prime/paint) harder and finding a way to have someone weld new Watts linkage studs on in place of the broken ones.

For now, I was going to try bolts [Rubicon Express RE2051 Shock Mount Stud Kit] as an interim fix.https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006GJOKAU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm not sure where to find just replacement studs, but if I can verify the shoulder of these Crown J5352787 pins are 5/8" and the right length, maybe they will work....

It seems like tight quarters to weld in a replacement stud. Gerry at Packards SW has entire arms for $45 each which may be worth the price to avoid having to find the right replacement stud and someone to weld them with the arms installed.

I pulled the Watts linkage tonight. There has a been a fair amount of posts regarding Watts linkage bushings etc and I intend to follow the process outlined by Howard (HH56) in grinding off the rivets and tapping that sleeve for new bolts to put back together.

Plan for tomorrow is to take the Watts linkage apart, wire brush it and maybe paint it while I wait for those Rubicon shock mount studs to come on Monday.
Dwight provided a fair amount of instructions and pictures but any suggestions from y'all are always very appreciated.

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