Removing perch bolt for repair

[jrvariel48]

Originally Posted by V8COOPMAN

Once the perch bolt is removed from the hole, the tension of the spring still mounted will cause the wishbone's perch hole to become misaligned with the axle's hole. This MAY be difficult to re-align when the time comes to go back together. I believe I would have the axle/wishbone/spring assembly out from under the car to replace that perch bolt. Good luck!

Coop


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That's exactly what it was trying to do Coop! I jacked the car up on the frame until the wheels were off the ground. (Thanks pistonbroke & 19Fordy) Then I jacked up the axle a little. There's a sweet spot in there where the spring is almost completely relaxed. Then i installed a hydraulic ram in between the wishbones on top of the axle. When I applied pressure to the ram, the wishbone straightened out.
I started to press the perch bolt out and before it pass the bottom of the wishbone, I installed a similar sized bolt up through the hole to stop that from happening. When I reinstalled the repaired perch bolt it went in with little resistance. There's a balance of the position of the axle up and down and how much pressure is applied to the wishbones. It was fairly easy to accomplish.

Thanks to everyone for their input and for making this a simple and safe repair!
Joe