Front Suspension

With my aspirations to replace the stock engine with a crate 350 I decided to start my restoration with the suspension.  To make sure i don't get parts confused i decided to work on one side at a time.  The removal of the front sway bar was easy...the control arms were another issue.

Turns out when a car is 28 years old bolts don't like to come undone.  This was the case with the stock shocks.  The lower bolt on the shock came off rather easily, but i couldn't get the shock to stop spinning in order to get the proper torch on the top nut.  After trying all sorts of compression devices, notice the compression wrench in the photo below, I ended up doing this the hard way. 

What is the hard way, you ask?  Well it involved a miniature hack saw and a lot of frustration. After cutting through the upper shock tube and pulling the parts out of the frame I felt it was appropriate to take the below photo to document my success.

I wish I could have used a sawsall but that wasn't an option with the confined space I was working with.  With the shock out I was able to insert the coil compressor and unbolt the control arms from the car.  To do so I used a spare jack lift up on the control arm assembly, just below the spindle, in order to compress the coil spring.

After the spring was safely compressed I inserted the interior coil compressor and locked it into place.   With the stored energy of the spring confined by the coil spring compressor I lowered the jack stand and unbolted the spindle.  With the lower spindle connection unbolted i was able to swing the lower control arm down and remove the still compressed coil spring.


Now deciding if i want to use POR15 on the control arms...