Removing perch bolt for repair

[jrvariel48]

I need to remove the pass. side perch bolt to make a repair to the shock mount.
The car is a 35 Coupe with split wishbones. I have the car on a 4 post lift. I started to press the pin out and it's moving without a major fight because I greased it when I installed it 10 years ago.
Question is do I need to worry about anything moving?
Should the car be jacked up from the frame or axle to take the weight off or is it ok resting on the wheels? The axle is still attached to the spring.
Thanks Joe

[pistonbroke]

The car would be lifted by the frame with the axle on stands if I were doing it . Depending on your spring and shackle arrangement the spring may be under some tension when you remove the shackle. Tim

[19Fordy]

Be sure to follow the above advice and have "no load" on the axle or spring.
I am not sure of how the spring attaches on a 1935 Ford but you might want to use a spring spreader to "unload" the spring to take lateral pressure off the perch bolt thereby making it easier to remove and reinstall.

[TJ]

Follow the advice of pistonbroke and 19Fordy.

[jrvariel48]

Great thanks everyone!

[V8COOPMAN]

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

Originally Posted by jrvariel48

I need to remove the pass. side perch bolt to make a repair to the shock mount.
The car is a 35 Coupe with split wishbones. I have the car on a 4 post lift. I started to press the pin out and it's moving without a major fight because I greased it when I installed it 10 years ago.
Question is do I need to worry about anything moving?
Should the car be jacked up from the frame or axle to take the weight off or is it ok resting on the wheels? The axle is still attached to the spring.
Thanks Joe

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


.

[deuce5wndw]

If it's still a stock 35 spring it will be attached to the wishbone in front of the axle so it will probably have some tension on it. Use a spring spreader to hold everything in place or porta power etc.

[19Fordy]

V8 makes a good point. When I replaced my perch bolts and axle I did as pictured below. However, if you can relieve the pressure on the perch bolts with the wishbone in the car it would be nice. The C-clamps in the photos were used as a safety precaution in case something "sprung loose".
Spring spreader is homemade and much stronger than needed. Last photo shows reverse eye spring where I also double nutted the perch bolt so I could use it to jack up the car without damaging the perch bolt threads. Just seemed like a good idea.

[Bored&Stroked]

Another thing to consider is using some big C-Clamps and then slowly disassembling the spring pack - such that only the main leaf is attached to the perches.

This usually takes the vast majority of the load off the spring - making the rest a lot easier to work with. I would roll the whole assembly out from under the car . . . making everything a lot easier and safer to work on.

[Andy]

This is how I remove shackles. I put the car on jackstands and put floor jacks under the spring ends. If you jack one up so the shackle is level you will be able to jack the other one up until the shackle is not loaded. You can use wood blocks to level the static end also. I have done this on front and rear springs. I got rid of my spring spreader.

[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


.

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

[19Fordy]

Joe, post photos of what you did, if you have them. Thanks.

[jrvariel48]

Here's what I got Fordy. I hope this helps
Thanks

[petehoovie]

Originally Posted by jrvariel48

Here's what I got Fordy. I hope this helps
Thanks