After the last event, I had a tremendous shimmy in the front-end during acceleration at pretty much any speed. I noticed that the front motor mount and the transmission mount were both destroyed so I tried replacing those, but to no effect. I’m guessing the problem is related to axles and CV joints, so I decided to replace those, but in order to do it right, I’d go ahead and put on all the new bits I had waiting in the wings.
So far, I have the control arms with the Prothane bushings installed in the car, the sway bar is hooked back up, and the new tie rod ends are on. I picked up some new brake rotors and I have them sitting, ready to go on. The right axle was weeping a bit of fluid from the seal and the left seal didn’t look so great either, so I replaced it. When I pulled the left axle out, the joints were extremely notchy and felt like they had a lot of play, so I popped in a replacement that I had on the shelf. I’m not 100% sure about the replacement, but we’re going to give it a try since just swapping an axle isn’t that big of a deal.
While we had everything apart, though, I found a ton of play in the wheel bearings, so the knuckles and new National bearings have been sent to a local shop for press work. Once those come back, it should be a quick matter of popping them on, getting the new rotors on, putting in the new brake pads, and bolting the wheels back on. At some point, I’m going to need to look at the alignment, but I want to see if I’ve fixed the problem first and, if so, I may source that work to a pro.
Right now, though, the car is sitting with the new axles seals in, the control arms and tie rods attached, and the axles securely in the OBX with the transmission filled with Synchromesh.
On the topic of the control arms, we had some slight troubles with the horizontal bolts in the front. They got rusted together with the metal bushing and didn’t want to pop out. We were able to remove them by heating and hammering, but in the process we destroyed the nut on the left side. I didn’t notice that the nut was damaged so when I went to bolt it together, there was too much force on the tab that’s supposed to hold the bolt head still inside the K-member so it tore off. In order to hold it in place (once I got a new nut, of course), I chopped about an inch off a 21mm deepwell socket and put it on a universal joint. Worked perfectly.
I also have all new brake hardware (springs, pins, drums, shoes) and the rear bushing set, but I’m not going to do that just yet. The brakes wouldn’t be a huge deal, but I can’t really replace the rear control arms until I cut and move the exhaust out of the way. And I’m too lazy for that! I may wait until I do the motor swap — I have the exhaust in so tight to prevent it from falling off that there’s no play in it for easy removal and installation.