Past couple outings with the 70 GS, I noticed the front end was creaking. Sounded like an old door that needed its hinges lubed. Took the front end apart Saturday morning and looky what I found! :grin: One bushing was starting to wear through the shell. and the one shell was cracked!! I guess that was my creaky soundou:. I had bought a set of powder coated lowers with new bushings and ball joints installed so I swapped them in. The fact that its a Wyoming car is a real plus. Car came apart with basic hand tools. Not one bolt fought with me. Put everything back together and took it for a test drive. Its amazing the difference just doing the lower bushings. Car rides completely different. I didn't think it would of made such an improvement. Now I cant wait to do the uppers next weekend and then get it aligned. As a side note, after doing that job Saturday, I felt like I got run over when I woke up this morning. 20 years ago I would of sprang out of bed. Now it takes me a few steps just to stand up straight!
Looks good to go to me! A little black rattle can and it'll be good as new! :grin: Congrats on the major improvements. I feel your pain. Swapped motors last weekend and still haven't fully recovered. Bruised on both arms from slipped ratchets and the ensuing rapid deceleration against a block/header/frame.
When I bought the car, it had offset upper control arm cross shafts. The Moog ones that give you and extra degree of positive camber they say to compensate for sagged frames. I wonder if those were put in to compensate for the worn bushings in the lower arms? They probably weren't as bad as they are now. So the big question is do I install my restored factory cross shafts or put the offset ones back in? Its going to be a crapshoot either way I think. Im not going to know till I get it on the rack.
The donor car I got the engine and trans out for my car has all the suspension bushings looking like that. I think that they are original from 1969, as well as the spiral shocks. It's old, of course, but I think that the 45k on the speedo is real. It's going to become something chinese soon; it is pretty crusty.
I can't believe the people here thinking that those can be fixed with paint or WD-40. This needs to be fixed properly with a tube of Ultra Black silicone. Squirt that stuff in there and let it set overnight. If it's worth doing it is worth doing right!:Smarty:
Looks like the ones which came out of my '67, up until the: snap-CLUNK-PS belt squeal. Glad you got them changed out before what happend to me could happen to you.
Before you replace the uppers, check your camber using a level. Change shims to get the wheel/tire plumb. At that point you should be able to determine if you still need the offset shafts.
I had the opportunity to take a good look at the camber this week. Just eyeballing it from the front of the car, the tops of the tires are noticeably tilted out at the top. Plain as day. I wound up putting in the stock, non offset cross shafts and taking it for a ride. The tops of the tires are still tilted out a bit which is good. I have only one shim in the front bolts so there is plenty of adjustment to go negative. It goes to the alignment shop this week. I'll post up the before and afters
