[Hot Rod Reverend]

I got quite a bit done on the 55 Fairlane last night. The front end of the frame is about completely bare save a couple brake lines. I did not have a coil spring compressor but I opted to leave the shocks INSTALLED until after I had disconnected the ball joints. This left some tension on the shocks but since I used my jack underneath the lower A arm to offset the pressure and the upper shock bolts were removed first. After that the jack was released and the coil just slid right out. I will disconnect the shocks from the lower A arms once I have them on the bench to remove the bushings.



Speaking of bushings, some of them were so old and worn out they literally fell off in my hands once the bolts were removed. The only difficult item to remove was the large shoulder bolt holding the front of the lower A arm to the crossmember. It was rusted pretty well and once I had it removed I noticed it was pitted badly. I think I have a good used one somewhere. The reason for the rust? As you can see from the photos, years ago a previous owner had made a repair to the crossmember by welding in good metal that seems to be thicker than stock. Unfortunately no weep holes were never drilled in thebottom so all these years the moisture had collected in the crossmember with no place to go. The crossmember is very stout and I beat on it with a hammer all night long, but I think I am going to have a welder friend of mine look at it and shore it up in a couple of places. I made a note to myself to drill a few holes when he is done. I also started disassembly/cleaning of a 1956 Ford steering column and gear I had purchased a few months back. I like the 56 wheel better, and from what I understand the 56 steering gear had a 3 tooth sector over the 55's two.

Does anyone know why Ford had to put these shims in the FRONT of the Lower A Arm pivot point? I am wondering if they have anything to do with alignment (like the shims used on the Upper A Arm) or is this just something that Ford used because the crossmembers were never square? I don't think they have anything to do with alignment but I could be wrong on that.... I plan to put them back in because they were there when I disassembled the arm.


I did get a little hungry last night while working in the garage for a few hours and decided to break out the deep fryer and throw down with some homemade apple pies... yep - I put together the crust and all from scratch. You can see my kids tearing into these things. Nothing like a snack before the youngin's go off to bed! :P


If any of you have any tips on disassembling, cleaning, and inspecting the steering gear I would appreciate it. When I took off both of the covers of the gear housing last night, the gears themselves looked pretty good, I think I saw only 2 or 3 pits as I rotated the gears on the shaft and knuckle.