TC's nightmare/rustbucket A-ARM swap....
 

Man oh Man... who knew this would take over a week.

We started Friday night May 9th... Basically his lower A-Arms were rusting through to the point of possible failure. What we DIDN'T know was that the bolts and rubber bushings that held the A-ARMS to the frame were seized. I kid you not it took us Friday night, and all day Saturday to drill them out. (4 bolts/bushings).

On top of that Troy's front locker was still having problems so while we were in there we dropped the front diff and took that apart.

Gutless Rusted Wonder:
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA


AxleIke thinking this job is worth 1 Million Dollars.... (at least)
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA

TowerRigger getting his sawzall on. I think we went through like 12 blades....
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA

When the long end of the blade would get stripped Kyle would just snap it so we could use the shorter end... What a Bad Ass! :D
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA

Then some grinder action....
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA

Serious team effort.... We had to take turns at the sawzall as it vibrated our teeth out of our heads!
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA

Ah! Success! We got one part of the passenger A-Arm off...
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA

We celebrated with some MollyFood (tm)

Who knew such a small rusted pieces of A-Arm (x4) could be such a PITA?
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA

Finally had to resort to the Plasma Cutter...
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA

Finished getting the lower A-Arms out late Sunday!
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA

Took a break Monday to weld some shackle mounts onto FJCruzer's rig.
http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgser...108AbNWLJszZOA

So now we've got the new lower A-Arms in (and Ball Joints) I also scrubbed all the rust and we painted it with POR (2 coats) I got the Hubs back on, then troy got the CV's and Diff back in right before he left for Hungary (work).

Seriously it might have been easier to just do a SAS but After all the derusting and paint it looks great. This week I will de rust and paint the back end of his rig.

We couldn't have done it without the help of TowerRigger, MrWillie, FJCruizer and especially AxleIke!

:guitar:

I thought SAS was a bad word around TC?

Great team effort, rotating out on the sawzall is what it takes sometimes. I learned on my Trekker's Front end that the cheap blades don't cut it. Had good luck with Milwaukee's Rescue blades..they seem to cut for ever. Stucked up for doing the rear suspension.
Saw safety glasses, but no hearing protection? Doing that work seems to give me ringing ears (now have tinnitus) if I don't have ear plugs...

Cool job!

Man, I totally feel your pain. I had one seized bolt that I cut out this weekend, the other 3 were still spinning. That one bolt took me 3 Milwaukee 14-tooth blades and forever to cut out, just can't get the right angle to get a good cut. I when reassembling I think I used about half a bottle of anti-seize, it was all over everything.

Awesome job guys! Glad to see I wasn't the only one to slay the beast this wknd. :bigok:

I think half a bottle of tequila would have been better there Dave!!! LOL

The blades don't seem to matter what you've got, those camber bolts are so hard that they just eat the teeth off of the blades in seconds.

SAS may be a bad word, but it would have been more rewarding than that project.

I guess a sawsall blade was all the could squeeze in between there?

I had to cut a tie rod end out last year. Gave up on the sawsall after the first blade, put an abrasive wheel on my circular saw, set it to the deepest cut, and it was out real quick. Of course, about 1/4 of the blade was worn off, but it came out.

Yeah, my buddy has a plasma cutter, but couldn't get it in there ... would have gone QUICK if we could have, as the plasma don't care if the bolt is hardened or not ... just if it's rusty. Ironically, the sawzall was faster than the plasma for cutting off the arms to get them out of the way.

It is! AxleIke too... but after this adventure even Isaac was like dude we should just SAS this thing... we're over halfway there :D

But since we already have a SAS no need for 2. (Course tippy doesn't run yet)...

But all in all. it looks really good now and the sleeper truck known as Ron will Carry on!

:saw:

X2, I'm on my 2nd bottle now. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Works good on O2 sensor nuts too (don't get it on the sensor though)

http://inlinethumb22.webshots.com/39...600x600Q85.jpg

Yeah, man! I get the stuff in 16 ounce bottles with the brush in the cap from NAPA. Can't use too much IMO. BTW, I found that someone (Loctite or Permatex can't remember) makes a copper anti-seize that seems to work better on the O2 and header bolts since it's designed for high temp applications and doesn't burn off as much.

Don't let Anti Seize anywhere near me... or RTV for that matter. I'll get it all over myself before I get it on the bolt!

Same here. I don't know how many pairs of jeans I have that have blue RTV on them somewhere.

I love copper anti-sieze and 242/262 thread locker I use all three all the time on just about everything [not together at the same time though lol] about the only thing I dont use them on is drain plugs the oil does well enough for them haha.
no pics of the MollyFood?

Who do you think took all the pics??? :nana: I'll try and get some next time!

Oh and ask Troy (~tc~) sometime about how I got my nic-name PigPen - starting with the copper RTV all over the place.... :lof:

RTV should come in bigger tubes. Half a tube for the project, and half a tube for shirts, jeans, rags, driveways ....

:lof:

That right there is so me!

Job well done...

I don't have a problem with the rtv, but getting diff fluid spilled on me is sometimes a problem, and we all know how awesome that stuff smells! :jk:

The best part of it is its long lasting. It's usually about three days for me. Get to do again soon, twice. Getting my cryo'd precision 5.29s any day.:banger:

I know!

Its not too bad, but i still prefer not to smell it.

My buddy spilled a bunch in his jeep one time, it seemed to smell forever!