how long should it take for me to do my new pst front bushing kit, and a change over to new power disk from power drum. have all the stuff i need came in kits. just me and my dad. were pretty advanced mechanics not experts but pretty good.
thanks

I would say at least all weekend, the PST kit on Sat and the disc brake kit on Sun. Good luck!!!!!!!!!

While this is not a rocket science project as it's elbow & wrench intensive, it can be dragged out by unforseen things.

You have 2 big decisions.

#1 - Are you just going to tear it down, replace/rebuild parts and bolt it all back up? If you hustle in a garage out of the weather, a weekend is doable.

#2 - Are you going to sand blast, and repaint it as you tear down/rebuild? Replace all wear items, new brake lines and etc... This can take a couple more weekends. Rattle cans are obviously a low-buck approach and drys fast, but POR is the ideal jobbers-choice here, and it can take 24 hours to dry.

I don't have to drive my stuff to work on Monday, so I seem to take the long way around. But I think the front end rebuild is a 4-8 hour job (assuming no extra runs to the auto parts store :rolleyes: )

And if you work the front disc spindles in there you kinda get it for free, other than changing the master/distribution block.

Really check your lower arms for cracks where the lower ball joint is pressed in. The arms tend to crack on the sides.

even though im in college i can still drive mommy and daddys spare cars. yes i plan on just tearing down and rebuilding wasnt planning on painting but i probably will. i dont know if i am doin in in the garage i hope to but its really really messy. do a arms really get rusty. should i pull teh engine when i do this. :confused: thanks for all of the input

You should be able to do it in a weekend, and as DG said the brake swap is almost free - you'll already have your old spindles out.

The most time consuming part for me was replacing the bushings in the upper and lower control arms. I took them to a guy I knew in a local muffler shop (only place open on a Saturday.) He had the tools for the ball joints and that was pretty quick, but he spent about two hours working on the lower ones. By that time, the shop was closing so I took the upper ones home and did them myself.

They took me about two hours, drilling out the rubber and chiseling out the old. Fortunately I had a 36mm socket laying around from a VW I used to own (axle nuts) which was the perfect size for driving the new bushings in.

I wasted another 3 hours or so because I put a spring back in wrong, and didn't realize until I tried to put the shock back in. The top coil of the spring was blocking the hole in top seat, so I had to drop the lower control arm again to properly seat the spring.

so will there be alot of big size sockets that i will need. havent even looked in the boxes yet.

You can hurry the job ,but make sure you take a close look at the A-frames they have a habit of getting hairline cracks around the ball joint holes. I thought I had a good pair until I sandblasted and found a large crack that ran right into the hole. Imagine if I would have found out it was bad at 70 mph!!!!! :eek:

You can hurry the job ,but make sure you take a close look at the A-frames they have a habit of getting hairline cracks around the ball joint holes. I thought I had a good pair until I sandblasted and found a large crack that ran right into the hole. Imagine if I would have found out it was bad at 70 mph!!!!! :eek:

I don't think any of the bolts are bigger than 3/4". The 'big' socket was only needed to pound in the bushings. If you can a find a machine shop open on Saturday, you may have them remove and put in the bushings for you.

Here is step by step instructions, along with required tools, this is worth printing and It doesn't get any easyer than this.

http://www.employees.org/~redneck/carstuff/front_procedure.htm


Rocky

I did a similar kit last year. Not including the sandblasting, painting, etc. it took the better part of a weekend to bolt the stuff on. The longest time spent was fabbing the new brake lines just "right". Mine were shot and needed replacement. Plan on a weekend for each end to do it right and not rush. I had the local machine shop press in the bushings. After seeing him cuss up a storm on 'em, it was money well spent.

wow thanks that will be helpful. is there a way to fix the cracks. weld or anything. how much are new ones.