LCA is out, need a new one
got the rear Lower Control Arm (LCA) out of my car tonight. turned out a bit of cleverness spared the angle grinder or sawz-all.
i previously mentioned that the bushing in the joint between the LCA and the wheel knuckle, on the driver’s side rear of my car, shredded when i tried to turn out the bolt that holds them together.
well, the collar in the middle of the bushing turns, preventing the bolt from coming out. i thought about how to keep the collar from turning, and bought a bigger set of vice grips tonight.
you can see from the pictures, the vice grips were adequate to keep the collar from turning. i had to clamp them on with both hands… but they held. the bolt screamed with every turn — i had actually considered retrieving my earplugs at one point. but it eventually got easier, enough to turn the bolt with a ratchet. and then i knew, it was out. victory!
now to order new parts from bickford ford and install them, to finally drive my car with SVT suspension.
suspension, interrupted
sigh… in the saga of “nothing cheap is easy” the SVT suspension swap onto my car has ground to a halt… at the last wheel.
on the driver’s side rear, as i was preparing to remove the bolt to detach the knuckle and the rear lower control arm (LCA), the bolt got stuck in the bushing sleeve and tore the sleeve from the bushing (so it now spins freely).
this has 2 consequences… 1.) i cannot get the bolt out by ordinary means, 2.) i cannot get the new springs in without finding a special set of spring compressors.
i managed to get the stock spring out with standard dual-screw type spring compressors, but i cannot get the SVT spring in with them — the compressors interfere with the LCA itself. it was easy to position them appropriately to clear the LCA while removing the stock spring, but applying them to the replacement spring in the correct place to clear the LCA is nigh impossible.
so, my next task is — attempt to get the bolt out without damaging the knuckle , OR find a way to get the spring in, and take the whole car to a shop to get the bushing replaced. joy!
suspension, halfway
so, 10 points if you can guess what this is?
it’s one of the bolts from one of the old front sway bar end links from my focus. i ended up having to hacksaw it off.
what does that mean? well, let’s just jump forwards in time from that moment…
a comparison of old and new swaybar links … ford redesigned them 4 times
no suspension anymore
SVT front suspension installed!
so, we’re halfway through the install. now i need to install the rear suspension… hopefully, that one shouldn’t be as tough.
our truck: Ford F-150 “moosie”
this is our work truck, a 1990 Ford F-150 that we affectionately refer to as “moosie.”
picture of the f-150 in the mountains, 1
picture of the f-150 in the mountains, 2
picture of the f-150 the day we brought it home
my focus: 2001 ZX3
this is my 2001 Ford Focus ZX3.
pictures were taken on of a forest service road, just off of the mountain loop highway east of granite falls, wa
picture of zx3 in the mountains, 1
picture of zx3 in the mountains, 2
picture of zx3 in the mountains, 3
moosie gets some attention
in lieu of getting my focus suspension install completed (short answer: needed to replace parts i didn’t expect to replace) i decided to take part of my columbus day to work on the truck.
moosie got new spark plugs and an oil/filter change. yes, quite exciting, i know.
also we discovered that the truck (longbed F-150) will fit entirely within the garage. that’s good to know — we intend to rebuild the garage next year, and are bound by building codes to make it precisely the same size as the existing one. so the new one will accomodate a full-size pickup as well.
SVT suspension waiting for an install
well, i finally got out the ol’ ratchet & spring compressors, and assembled my SVT struts & springs.
now i just need a free weekend day to roll the ZX3 into the garage and get them installed.