Update 11/17/09: I’ll be moving the Fiat out tonight and moving the SS to front row center and starting to work on it again this weekend. All the suspension pieces could be assembled to the car by the end of the year if my plans to get floors in the car work out.
Original Post 5/22/08: I am going to use the parts book terms for these parts so there is no confusion as to what I am talking about.
The front suspension on my SS was lightly assembled without shocks to make the car a roller and it came apart without any problems. Most of the pieces just need cleaning and painting so I will deal with those as a group later, but there are some components that require great care in cleaning and restoring. The lower wishbone is one of these parts because there are several critical systems tied to it: the bushed suspension support pivots, lower ball joint, suspension limiting rebound strap, sway bar mount and lower spring seat. In this post I am going to look at the wishbone itself with regard to cleaning, and the disassembly of the ball joint. I was advised to leave the ball joints together but this one had enough play that I was worried about it having to come apart later anyway. The parts book has only one part number (101.00.21.030.00) for the wishbone that fits all 101 cars and 2 are required for each car so it must be symmetrical.
The suspension components on my SS were treated with some kind of rust inhibitor that is very hard to remove, requiring a combination of scraping and media blasting. Once I have the wishbone stripped bare I tape over the openings to the support pivot bushings, to prevent blast media from getting into the grease passage ways and I masked the ball joint opening to keep media out and grease from getting in the blast cabinet. For a first pass I spend about 10 minutes removing as much of the loose coating as possible and I focus on the snap ring on the ball joint threaded ring nut. This snap ring has to be removed to thread the ring nut out.
Wishbone masked off and ready to be blasted.
Continue reading “Suspension #1: Front lower wishbone and ball joint”
This Fiat was one of my favorites. I’ve got a thing for stationwagons (especially goofy early 60’s ones), a thing for gray cars, a thing for original black plate cars and as I find myself checking out Fiats more and more while casually browsing eBay and Craigslist, I guess I’m developing a thing for fiats. And why not, you can get a lot of car for your money.
