I'm in the process of tearing down my 1970 Chevelle Malibu for an eventual body-off-frame rebuild. This weekend I tore down the front end/clip & ended today disassembling the steering components. Now I'm an engine/trans guy - pretty much a newbie with steering components.

I pulled the cotter pins and unbolted everying steering-related; innner and outer tie rods, idler arm, etc. I used a pickle fork to knock the outer tie rods off of the spindles.. and then forked the inners off of the relay (intermediary) arm.

My question is how do I properly remove the idler arm from the intermediary arm... and the pitman arm from the intermediary arm? Does this require some form of puller? I tapped the unbolted studs lightly with a hammer, but that doesn't seem to do much. My concern is that I don't want to damage the gear box by wacking the hell out of the relay arm while still connected to the pitman arm.

Do I need a puller, or just a BFH?

Here's pic if you want to see where I'm at (warning - large picture):

Relay Arm Disassembly Pic (http://www.wale.us/101_0185.JPG)

PS. Assuming I replace the entire steering (when I rebuild) w/ new Moog parts (tie rods, etc.), is everything in-between the inner and outer tie rods disposable? IOW, can I throw both of those assemblies away - or will still need the sleeves or something else?

Wack the centerlink off the pitman arm with your pickle fork. Might take a few wacks with the BFH, but that's about it. Don't worry about the Idler arm as you're replancing the centerlink and idler arm, correct? You might want to put the inner tie rods (with the outers still attached) back on the centerlink so you can setup your new Moog components to roughly the same length. That way the toe-in will be good enough to drive to the alignment shop.

Let us know if the pickle fork works for you!

Thanks Alan, worked great.

It took quite a bit more banging than the tie rods did, but it came off no problem. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to hurt the gear box by banging..

--Brian