I've got my front suspension all out on the garage floor without too much trouble. Taking the 4 control arms to a local machine shop to have the ball joints and bushings pressed out.

I'm assuming that my next step should be to sandblast the arms and paint "before" getting the new bushings pressed in? I should sand blast my stabilizer bar and paint while I'm at it too. Is POR 15 a good choice or is there another recommendation?

Never did this before and would rather do it right the first time as to not have to do it again so sorry for all the questions but here's one more.

I have both the hubs, spindles, brakes, dust shields hanging with wire on the frame as I left the brake lines attached. Should I try and clean this up and paint or what's recommended? Wheel bearings?

graemlins/thumbsup.gif

i like por-15. i would not sand blast the sway bar, it is time consuming and big. just wrap sandpaper around it and work the forarm :D
then por-15 it. you might want to consider boxing the lowers like this while you are at it. it would be the oprotune time. http://home.comcast.net/~adelalohr/einstyn1/a-arm-2.jpg

Pete,
What's the purpose of boxing those like that? Nice job by the way! I'm sure it strengthens things up and prevents twisting. Are the arms known to break or be weak there?

What to do with the dust shields, hubs etc...?

Scott,

I got a kit from Pete to do what he's shown. They had a great writeup about it in Car Craft about 2 years ago, and I made a mental note of it. Now that I'm in the middle of my front suspension, I bought the kit from Pete and will have them welded as he's done. Great way to strengthen the A-Arms and keep them looking stock IMO.

Also Pete's website is great - he found that zinc plating for rust control on his frame was cheaper than sandblasting, and that process should work fine on your a-arms also.

Sorry, Pete, but I like what you've done! graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Talk to me Pete! I only want to do this once so let's do it right. Tell me more about the kit that Extreme is talking about. Where do I get zinc plating done and how much is it?

I powdercoated my control arms, spindles, sway bars. It looks great, is very tough and not expensive. Skip