Looking good. When you put the shocks back in the car, make sure to put some of that poly bushing grease or something on the rubber bushings at the top of the shock. Otherwise you get this annoying squeak from the hatch area.

As for the sway bar bushing, I see no reason not to cut it.

 

Must be nice to have a garage... But I can't complain too much since it's 70 degrees here.

 

Yeah, it's a little garage, but I don't know what I would do without it. It lets me work on the car about 95% of the year, day or night. The only exception is the really cold days we had a while back, but I'm hoping to insulate the garage this summer. That should allow me to work on the car year round without much trouble.

 

I bought a big work light for my back yard, so I can work at night too! My next house must have a garage.

Oh yeah, I got the tie rod ends from rockauto.com, I got the MOOG brand.

 

Here is tonight's update. Didnt' get a whole lot done, but I finished up the stuff that I started last night. I went ahead and put in as many poly bushings as I could. I got the upper and lower CA's done, and the watts link bracket. Some of the bushings kept trying to shoot back out of the watts links. I guess that I will just have to wait and put those in on final assembly. That way they can't try to come back out. The nut and bolt that go through there should hold everything together though...

 

Oh yes, progress my friend... 'tis satisfying. So are freshly painted parts!

Just out of curiosity, exactly how did you put your bushings in? With a press?

 

That's the weird thing. I did all of those with my bare hands. It is was really easy. I just greased each one and then smashed it in with the palm of my hand. They all went right in. The only annoying part of course, was the ones in the watts links that kept shooting back out at me. Other than those, I put them all in by hand and they went great.

I did clean up the insides of the control arms with some sandpaper though, to smooth them out. Then I painted them. Then put the bushings in....

 

This is the question that I was going to ask, but you already answered it. Buildup looks good. Second question: How many hours do you have into this so far? I have ~6 days over spring break that i'm going to be doing a suspension swap from my '82 to my '85, as well as re-doing brakes and swapping SS lines. Can you give a rough estimate on how many hours you have into suspension and brakes, with and without bushings?

 

Well, I work very intermittently so it is hard to tell how long I've been at it. But, let me tell you this. I am EXTREMELY **** about the parts on my car, and I don't like to put them back on until they are completely cleaned and painted. However, if you just wanted to pull the old parts off and put the new ones on, I think this could all be done in 2 or 3 good days. I figure a good day for the front, a good day for the back, and a day of cushion time to account for any frustration or mistakes that occur. The work is really very easy, I'm just making it take longer than it needs to. The majority of my time has been taken up by cosmetic work.

 

looking good bro...going to look nice when it's done

 

That's what they say. I've had the staight poly bushings on my sways, front arms, and rear watts for over 10 years now and they still don't squeak.