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It's a Christmas miracle! Sort of, OK, it's too early for Christmas stuff, it's not even Thanksgiving, tell that to the stores!
But I was expecting some sort of epic battle on the disassembly of the rear suspension. Because it's crusty, rusty, and has been together for 48 years.
But to my amazement, those rusty nuts on the rear torque rods? Came right off. I had to take the front bracket they bolt to off the body since you can't get to the end of the rods, and those 6 botls came off easily. The other end of the torque rods unbolted easily. And not only were the inner parts of the rods not rusty (as sometimes happens - the rubber bushings can let water in and then hold it there), they were actually rust free. Boggles the mind.
Well, surely the lower control arms will put up a fight. There are fine threaded nuts on the U-bolt securing the axle to the arm. There's a large (13/16") fine threaded nut and bolt on the front end. Fine threads, large bolts and nuts, 48 years of bonding? They all came off fairly easily. Well the nuts and bolts at the front end of the arm (bolting the the trans tunnel) were pretty hard to initially budge at all, and it's a bit of a PITA to hold the nut in the very confined space on the outside of the arms, but once I managed to get the bolt to move at all, it came off fairly easily.
I guess part of the credit goes to the old leaky B18 engine that lead the way for the first 40 years of the car's life. Plenty of on the fly lubrication down wind? I'd like to say the B20 I built is leak free, but, heh, it's not. Not bad as old Volvo motors go, but it's not immune to 'marking its territory' so to speak.
Now just waiting for the IPD poly kit to show up. Should be set for the next 48 years after installing those.
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'63 PV544 rat rod, '93 Classic #1141 245 (now w/16V turbo)
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