I thought I would start out this round of posts discussing a new handy tool I bought not too long ago at Home Depot. I consider this my post teaser to get you sucked in to reading the rest of my boring spiel about removing parts from my car! Anyway.... I was over there on a weekend and saw these Makita cordless blowers on their clearance shelf for $39, (they normally sell for $99). As a sucker for tools and a perceived deal I bought 3 of them, one for me, my son, and son-in-law. We all have other Makita cordless tools with the same 18 volt battery so no need to buy batteries.
I get them home, and pulled one out of the box and powered it up with one of my batteries to see how it worked. Well, it blew but not with much force. I tried the other two and the same deal, they just didn't blow too hard. I checked other batteries, but still the same wimpy results. So I was really disappointed, figured it must be why Home Depot had them in the clearance section. But... as I was starting to box them up to take them back I noticed a little obscure dial on the handle (see pic inside red circle) that had number 1 on it. Hmmm, looked a little closer and discovered it had 3 speeds, and they were all set on the lowest! Doh! Well I moved it up to speed 2 and 3, and these little Makita's really get it done, blowing very strongly. Now this thing is about my favorite tool - I am constantly using it to blow out my garage and even dry off parts that I have been cleaning so I don't have to fire up my air compressor. So if you have some father's day gift card burning a hole in your pocket, I would highly recommend. I see that Dewalt makes a very similar model.
My next suspension dismantling project was to completely remove the lower control arm from the vehicle. In previous posts I had showed how I removed the ball joint and spindle, now I needed to get the strut rod and the control arm shaft freed from the K member to fully free it from the car.
This shows how the strut rod is connected to the LCA and K member.
To remove the strut from the K member I needed to punch the roll pin out and then took a 1" long socket and my breaker bar to break loose the nut, then took a ratchet to speed the final removal. There is a curved washer and bushing on both sides of the K frame where the strut passes.
Close-up of the strut after nut and washer removed showing the rubber bushing. The second half of this bushing is on the other side of the K frame out of view. The bushings came off easily by pulling with my fingers.
Next I removed the nut from the lower control arm shaft where it goes through the K frame. It is a 15/16" nut that came off without problem.
With the strut and lower control arm shaft nuts removed, I used my deadblow hammer to persuade the LCA out of the K member.
After just a few whacks and it slipped out easily.
And the LCA is off the car!
Next I removed the nut holding the other end of the strut into the LCA. My old Workmate bench is pretty useful for holding parts.
Strut rod is out - you can see the 2 part bushing pretty well here. I am sure it is original from 1968.
Now I needed to pull the LCA shaft and I assembled my pulling tool. The lower bolt adapter screws on the threaded portion of the shaft and through the pipe for the pull.
A few cranks on the socket wrench and the shaft easily pulled out of the rubber LCA bushing, probably because the rubber was so dry - pretty sure it was the original 1968 factory bushing. I was surprised to find the rubber bump stop on top of the LCA (that you can see upper left in this pic) was in remarkable shape without any dry rot or cracks plus it still felt very pliable. Pretty sure it is 1968 original too. Must have been made from a very healthy rubber tree!
And the LCA shaft is liberated! Well almost, still need to remove the pull tool from it.
Once the shaft was pulled out, I grabbed a screwdriver and dug the rubber out of the LCA bushing shell. It came out very easily. The shell still remains and I will need to remove that too. I was considering using poly bushings where I would not need to pull the shell out, but I decided to go with the original style rubber bushing with the metal shell, so this needs to come out.
To remove the shell I purchased another American Muscle tool that did not come in the main kit. They did give me a little deal on it since I had already purchased the kit. In the pic it is on the upper left. It is basically a couple of wedges you place in the shell with a bolt that pulls the wedges up and against the shell, and eventually out. You use the pipe and rod from the LCA shaft puller with these wedges.
You drop these two wedges in the shell hole.
Then you run this bolt up through the wedges.
Then you attach the rod and pipe and nut for the pull. I ended up putting it in my vise as I needed a little more leverage than the Workmate afforded. It took a little effort and re-positioning several times to get it to start pulling straight, but it finally pulled the shell out.
You can see the shell sitting on the LCA after I removed it from the puller. The surface inside the LCA where the shell just came out of is a little rough inside. I will probably try to smooth it slightly with some fine emory cloth. I don't think the roughness is a big deal as the new bushing should press in OK.
Here are my two LCA's cleaned up and ready for a new bushing, some paint, and installation someday. The driver's side LCA is one I bought from a FABO member a couple of years ago. My Cuda came with one LCA that had a swaybar tab (passenger side) and one that did not (drivers side). This car should not have had any swaybar tabs since it was not optioned with a swaybar. I find this kind of interesting how the factory back in those days were not all that particular - they used what they had at the time or maybe it was just a Monday morning mistake where the factory worker picked up the wrong LCA. Anyway I bought this drivers side LCA that had a swaybar tab as I plan to install a Hellwig swaybar that I purchased many years ago.
