Hi guys/gals,
It has been over a hundred years since I have posted here, my fault not yours,
but my life was consumed by a dreaded day job, we moved from our Tulsa Alfa
brethren and never did find the same joy of the marque down here in Houston as
we enjoyed for years in Tulsa. Again most likely my fault, just too damn busy.
Well life is gaining perspective once more as I have retired from my
ridiculously stressful day job to a much less stressful day job. I am actually
working for another Alfisti who lives up in Calgary and still plays with a
stable interesting cars including two GTV-6 project cars.
Anyway, down to the topic at hand. I have a 73 Berlina that used to belong to
Steve Kernyansky in Tulsa. He had done a excellent job of restoring the car in
the mid 1980's and it remains a beautiful example of a Berlina still in
excellent condition. Keeping it that way has been my main wrenching activity
for the last few years.
About two weeks ago I started a project of refreshing the front suspension with
replacement of all bushings and bearings including sway bar bushings. Taking
the front end apart was fairly straight forward. Steve had done something very
NICE to the A-arms. He installed a zerk lubrication fitting for the control arm
bushings. You obviously can't lubricate those bushings that way but you can,
and I did, give them a squirt every now and then over the years to prevent them
from seizing in place. When I went to press them out they came loose with a
fraction of the 20 tons I needed to break the same bushings loose on my spider!
Thank-you Steve. Nice idea.
So, doing the restore on all the bushings and bearings was fairly straight
forward and I have now got the front end back together with exception of the
sway bar. I spent about two hours the other day fussing with it and find that
it doesn't want to go back on in the reverse of how it came off. If I put the
end links in place, on the bolts that connect the sway bar to the A-Arms, I find
that I am not strong enough to then force the sway bar back into its mount
position in the frame. If I start with the sway bar in its mount position there
doesn't appear to be any way that the end links will go onto the end link bolts
without damaging the threads needed to secure the end links there.
Before I do something really stupid I thought I would ping the digest just in
case someone has done this job recently and knows of a trick to get the sway bar
back on without damaging anything [myself included].
My next trick, assuming no better suggestions forthcoming, will be to mount the
sway bar end links in place and then ratchet back the front of the bar until it
clears the frame and can make its way back to its mounts. Seems reasonable at
first thought, but then I took long enough to give it a second and third thought
and started getting nervous.
Any help would be appreciated guys, if only moral support.
Oh, and Merry Christmas to you all!
Paul
73 Berlina
84 GTV-6 Maratona
86 Spider Graduate
74 GTV 2000
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