{"id":320,"date":"2008-05-27T11:30:08","date_gmt":"2008-05-27T18:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/giuliettas.wordpress.com\/?p=320"},"modified":"2008-05-27T11:30:08","modified_gmt":"2008-05-27T18:30:08","slug":"suspension-2-rear-axle-locating-triangle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/2008\/05\/27\/suspension-2-rear-axle-locating-triangle\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspension #2: Rear axle locating triangle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0differential and axle assembly has to be able move around freely as the rear suspension absorbs bumps and loading changes caused during cornering and braking.\u00a0 This travel in the axle has to be limited so that the wheels can’t come into contact with the body in any loading condition.\u00a0 To accomplish this the axle assembly is\u00a0attached to the\u00a0body by a rear triangle at its center and a pair of trailing arms at either end.\u00a0\u00a0 These\u00a0pivot together as a\u00a0sort of 3 dimensional four-bar linkage\u00a0through\u00a0the center\u00a0of the massive ball joint that connects the triangle to a boss nearly equidistant from the two rear wheels on the axle.\u00a0The ball joint is the fulcrum of a teeter-totter between the two rear wheels.\u00a0 With respect to each other and this point\u00a0when one goes up, the other goes down.\u00a0 This motion is softened with respect to the body by springs that are dampened by shock absorbers and the travel at either end is limited by canvas straps.\u00a0 The entire assembly is isolated from the rest of the car by rubber bushings.<\/p>\n

The ball joint pin is a taper fit into the boss it goes in on the axle housing.\u00a0 Removing the triangle from the rear axle required heat and a ball joint separating tool commonly called a pickle fork.\u00a0 The pickle fork works by acting as a wedge between the axle housing boss and the triangle.\u00a0 I first scraped as much grease as I could off the boss to avoid a fire and to minimize stinky fumes, then heated the boss up, once it was hot I used a big hammer on the end of the pickle fork and the ball joint popped out of the taper.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A\u00a0lot of road grime attaches itself to everything on the underside of the car and the axle locating triangle is no exception.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I spoke with a few of my local experts about taking the ball joint on the rear triangle apart to clean it up lubricate it because I thought it felt a little stiff.\u00a0 Everyone told me to leave that ball joint alone.\u00a0 Its range of motion is very small and the loads acting on it are large, so what would seem stiff to my hands\u00a0trying to move the ball around in its socket would be trivial to the weight of the body shifting on the rear axle\u00a0as it pivots through this ball joint.\u00a0\u00a0I decided all I would do is clean the triangle up,\u00a0paint it and\u00a0grease the ball joint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I clean the triangle the same way I did the wishbone and ball joint in Suspension #1.\u00a0 Scrape the big stuff off with a knife and remove any grease.\u00a0 Mask off the ball joint to keep any media out of the joint then blast it to remove the easiest stuff.\u00a0 After the first pass in the blaster I scrape any stubborn bits off with a razor blade then blast it again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The area where the ball and socket is open needs to be protected from blast media.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Here is the ring clip groove after the first pass in the blaster.\u00a0 The ring clip end is pointing into the hole it goes in to lock the threads.\u00a0 I’m not sure if that bump in the casting near the hole is supposed to be there and serves a purpose, or it’s just a nicely symmetrical spot of weld.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Here it is after a second pass in the blasters.\u00a0 I left the clip in place so media wouldn’t fill up the lock hole.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The bushes look like new after a good blasting.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once the entire assembly is clean and washed down with POR 15 metal prep it gets painted with POR 15 paint.\u00a0 I try not to get any POR 15 paint in the ball joint threads because it would make them much harder to get apart in the future.\u00a0 When it’s assembled to the body I will smear some grease on the threads to protect them from road grime.\u00a0 I\u00a0may paint over the POR 15 with epoxy based appliance paint before setting this part aside until it’s time to install it.\u00a0 I still haven’t settled on the best finish for parts like this.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The cleaned part looks very nice, too bad it’s never going to be seen once it’s installed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The exposed opening in the ball joint seen above is protected by grease, a metal cup shaped washer that slips over the ball joint pin and a rubber dust cover.\u00a0 I still need to buy the washer and dust cover as both were destroyed by the ball joint separating tool.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0differential and axle assembly has to be able move around freely as the rear suspension absorbs bumps and loading changes caused during cornering and braking.\u00a0 This travel in the axle has to be limited so that the wheels can’t come into contact with the body in any loading condition.\u00a0 To accomplish this the axle assembly … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Suspension #2: Rear axle locating triangle”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,82],"tags":[114,118,151,178],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sprint-speciale","category-suspension","tag-cars","tag-classic-cars","tag-italian-cars","tag-vintage-cars"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}