1978 Pontiac Firebird Week 2009 02 14

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There was a gathering of the car nuts this Saturday.  We brought the engine home and worked on the front end.

	We had From left to right Ken Long, Vince Falco (who got the door prize of a nice used Sears floor Jack), Len Ball, Thomas Deyle, Don Goodman, and down in fron George Nick
	The engine was brought home from the Machine shop and is now in a place of honor in the garage.  The transmission may be done by the end of next week but I do not think the car will be ready to receive them.
	The next task was to take the car further apart. This seem to be a trend. We want to strip the control arms, so that the frame can be painted.
	This was not as easy as it might sound. The weight of the engine and front end are gone so we had to be creative in adding weight so that the springs could be compressed to remove the control arms.
	The arms are off.
	Vince and Ken took turns at the sand blaster. Boy these arms were dirty,.
	The upper arms are cleaned up and Tom is removing the bushings from the lower arms. Take a look at what they looked like before we started.
	Where is the work bench, it is buried under stuff.
	That is ok, Ken will clean it up. What a deal this is, all I do if feed these guys and they come over and do all the work.
	Ok, the arms and spindles are all cleaned up.
One of the problems with trailering a Firebird is when you co to put the straps on is the car sits so low you cannot get under it to put the straps on. Now is the time to make this an easier task. A couple of “D” rings welded to the front os the lower control arms will make this task a lot quicker and easier.
	The arms are now in the oven to out gas the metal before powder coat.
Ok, powder coat has been applied, now that ball joints and bushings need to be installed
	I am not a fan of Polyurethane bushings. In fact I recommend rubber. This is a special application though. I want the front to come up leaving the line to transferee weight to the rear wheels. I also have purchase 90/10 shock to help with this. This was a recommendation of Steve Walczak and was the major reason for stripping the front end. I could have painted the frame around the arms. Oh well. Click here for a discussion on how to lubricate polyurethane bushings correctly
Below are pictures of the arms just about done. I am missing the rubber bumpers for the upper arms, and one of the bumpers for the lower arms was broken