Wife bought me a little disco ball key chain to hang from the rear view. Best of all, it's nearly the same shade blue as my car is!

Also attached are a couple pictures of the car covered in snow. Just an idea of how much snow we had last month. Note that this is all after ONE NIGHT of snowing!  :surprised: :surprised:

After driving around, one morning to pay bills, the car was COVERED in ice. Huge chunks of ice hanging off the back bumper weighting about 7 pounds each, icicles hanging off the wheel wells, the filler neck encased in ice, the insides of the wheel wells had about an inch of ice all the way around! I didn't get any pictures that are clear enough to see all of the ice, but it was pretty brutal out that morning!

I picked up the axle today, what a heavy beast!

Everything is there, has good brake shoes on it still! I ordered a carrier gasket and new wheel cylinders which should arrive tomorrow.

Not sure what the gear ratio is yet, hopefully better than the 3.40 (which is way to low for the 4spd trans) than what I have right now. 3.00 would be ideal for the freeway.

Yesterday my brother in law and me took the snow tires off the car and put the regular tires on with the steel styled wheels. Happy to have my sporty right back!

We got the pumpkin separated, axle shafts out and everything stripped from the 8" as well and drained. Next Tuesday we are painting it and installing it. While we have the drive train torn down, we're dropping the transmission and rebuilding the clutch.

I fixed my wobbly and loose clutch pedal. I drove it like that for about five months and now that the pedal is firm again without any excess movement side to side, it's taking some getting used to, to drive the clutch.

Test pic of the 8" Axle before anything was done to it:



I think I have found a good photo sharing host!

Thanks Matt! It wasn't much work at all, although I have swapped out the 6 3/4" axles a few times already before doing the 8" swap.

I would say the hardest part of it all was separating the carrier from the housing to drain out all of the old oil and clean up the insides. While I did find a small amount of rust on the ring gear, it was only on the outside of the teeth and not where the pinion and ring gear mate. I have no extra noise or vibration due to it either. Until I can get a traction lock spool/carrier, I can live with it.

Everything matched up just fine, I am even using the original drive-shaft for the car without any noticeble differences in clearance or spacing  between the drive-shaft and the axle/transmission. This truely was a bolt on swap! Everything went smoothly, even the drums which were rusted to hell were able to be resurfaced!

Had a local paint shop mix up some black metallic low gloss paint for my dash, it's just about identical to the original paint. It was 18.35 for the paint and 6.95/ea. for the aerosol cans. Not to bad though. I also picked up a can of landau black SEM plastic/vinyl paint to touch up a few spots on the center console where the seat belts rub.

I also found the barrel nuts I have been looking for, for the emblems on the station wagon. They were $2.95 for a small package of 11 of them.

Indeed, Dwayne!

Today I sprayed the top and bottoms of the doors, as well as the window frames. I did the ash tray and the ignition collar on the steering column as well.

After that I hit the center console with some of the SEM Color Coat to touch up some areas that had some wear through to the red vinyl.

Just have the door edge trim to replace, and the air cleaner duct. Then wipe down the engine and compartment and wash the car and she's ready for the big show!

Thanks Frank!

Since I cannot bring Brownie to the car show I'm going to make the 78 look great. Otherwise I would be splitting my time between the cars.

Brownie needs her drive-shaft balanced and the rear transmission leak figured out, as well as a lower alternator bracket. The carb needs rebuilt or something cause it's slow as heck and barely climbs a hill!

I'll take pictures of the 78 before and during the show. The doors look a lot better now with the metallic black paint vs. the old flat black paint I used on them before!

The leak is coming from the output shaft seal. I have an extra one I will put in, but not until the drive shaft is balanced.

The fittings don't leak, I made sure of that when I had to replace one after rebuilding it a couple months ago. The return line fitting was loose but I replaced with another one just for safe measure.

Shoot. I just saw this post. Had I known you were looking for a manual rack I woulda swapped you the manual rack in my car for your power rack. I replaced the tie rods on it a couple years back & they are still tight.

Air is the easiest way to get the strut rods loose however I have done it by hand as well.  Just use a big cheater bar and get the car off the ground as high as possible.  Pass side may be a little tougher due to the exhaust.  Just make sure you loosen them before you remove the lower control arm or else they will spin and you will have to hold them with a large crecent or pipe wrench.  lubing them up before is a good idea, it should make it easier to bust free,

Bushings arrived today, waiting for the steering rack and then work can commence!

The shop press came in handy, I can't imagine installing the bushings without it! For precision while installing the A-arm bushings and for the ease of installation, a press is a must have when it comes to rebuilding your front end at home. And with the great place called Harbor Freight, a shop press is affordable to just about anyone with the space to put it! The press I have is a 12-ton standing shop press that my dad bought for me at Harbor Freight for $130.00. It uses a bottle jack as the hydraulic applicator and it does a great job doing so.

Having the press on a three or four foot stand or table would have been much more comfortable though, as I was kneeling or crouched most of the time during all of the work at the press.

For suspension bushings I decided to go with Energy Suspension parts. They are affordable and offer great performance from what I have heard. I bought them at AutoZone since their price was cheaper than O'Reilly's, and it's the same part. The only part I ordered that was not correct were the sway bar bushings. I have a 15/16" bar on my car, and the only bushings available were 11/16" bushings, a bigger difference than some might think. I didn't think to measure my bar before ordering them.

End links for the sway bar are Duralast brand. They get the job done as well as any other, and a lifetime warranty. Can't complain to much. They weren't cheap though, for what they are. $25.00 each.

My new steering rack is an MBM built unit that I purchased from JPL Street Rods in Pennsylvania. I had them include a set of rubber rack bushings with it as well, but I will have to see if I can locate some urethane bushings like the Energy ones are. So far no complaints with the rubber ones though!


Well here are the photos I took with some captions the way I have been doing them. Numbers listed according to how they are displayed below, with descriptions of each photo.


Lets start with the upper control arms, more commonly known as the A-arms.

Changing the bushings on these requires fabrication of a spacer between the inside distance of the bushing shell locations. The spacer keeps the arm from flexing and warping during installation of the bushing shells. Extreme pressure is required to install the shells since they are press fit. Quite similar to installing wheel bearings but without anything to stop the bushing shell from being pressed in to far. Below are photos of the spacer my dad and I made. we took a section of 1 1/2" galvanized pipe and cut it in half using his metal cut off saw. It took some daring tactics of my dad's to figure out how to make his small 5" saw cut the length of a nearly 8" pipe in half. It involved removing all of the safety devices (clamp and shield). Daring, yes, effective? YES! I don't recommend doing this though, I was hesitant to touch the saw without the safety stuff on it. I did wear a full face mask and heavy clothing on the arms and legs just in case though.

Once the pipe is cut, it can be trimmed slighting using a bench grinder until it fits snug in the underside of the control arm, it should slide over the inner bushing shells, then rotate around to the top of them until it gets tight.

The pictures below are with the bushings removed, but it makes no difference when installing the spacer. Yes, always have the spacer in place when pressing anything into or out of the A-arm. The A-arms are fragile when abused as they are just stamped steel.

Pictures 1 and 2) Once the old rubber bushings and inner sleeves are removed, you should have what looks like this.

3) To remove the shells, it helps to have a bolted down bench vice, like I used, to hold the A arm in place while you saw out the bushing shells with a hack saw. It doesn't take long, 5-10 minutes to get through a decent portion of the metal. Not completely through, just enough to make it weak and tear. You will want a saw blade like the one I am using (wide) and made for cutting steel or it will dull/bend quickly. You will need to disconnect the blade from one end of the saw, pass the blade through the bushing and then reconnect it.

4) Be sure to cut the inside of the bushing shell on the side of the A-arm that would be facing downwards when installed on the car. You will understand why in just a bit.

Once you are finished you should have what looks like I have in the pictures below! That's it for the hard part! Now you can press in your new sleeves! Remember to measure outer edge shell distance frequently to avoid binding bushings.
 
 Also, a VERY IMPORTANT POINT! Be sure to install the cross bar correctly before putting the bushings in! The bowed out side of the bar should be bowing outwards towards the back of the arm If it isn't, then you have it in backwards and need to turn it around. If this isn't installed correctly you will not be able to put the arms back onto the car until you flip it all around!
 
 I could not find any specified torque ratings for the nuts that hold the cross bar on the arm and the bushings on it. I just set my air impact wrench to the highest setting and spun them on, then continued to let it tighten them up until it stopped moving. I suppose you could torque them down to 85 foot pounds like the lug nuts and not worry, but my air impact wrench does 95 foot pounds at max setting and they tightened up really well.
 
 
REMINDER: Don't forget to lubricate the bushings before installing them! The Energy Suspension kit comes with a small tub of white silicone grease that you will use for this purpose. Grease the outside of the bushing and the inside of the shell before installing the bushings. Also grease the inside of the bushings and the bushing sleeve before installing the sleeves. Anywhere that the bushing contacts the metal! This will make installation easier by preventing the bushing from pulling in on itself, as well as prevent any squeaking when the car is back on the road again.