Attempted to assemble the rear suspension on my 69 convertible tonight.

Everything was going peachy - finally got the upper bushings pressed into the rear end, and began bolting it all up...

THEN.... The d@mn Driver side control arm would not bolt in, the passenger went fine.
Got up into the area to check it out, and the inside (drive shaft side) control arm is hitting the front of the pumpkin!

I cannot get the arm low enough to get the bolt in , due to interference...

I checked to see if maybe I had the left/right confucsed, but they look the same graemlins/angry.gif

What did I do wrong - any ideas? :confused:

Joe

How do you have the rear supported? Is it on a jack so that maybe your tilting the pinion angle up too far for it to fit? I hung my rear from the shocks so that it centered up, then slowly lifted it to where the uppers would bolt in finger tight, then I lowered the rear and slapped in the lower control arms. Lastly, I set the car down and torqued all the control arm bolts. My .02 for ya....

Who makes the arms? A number of aftermarket arms need to be ground down to fit a 12 bolt.

Tim.

Nope - think they are stock arms, thin metal. The seem to have a stiffening rib along the side - but even without that - I think the arm would rub....

I got this thing bare so I put the bushings in with the flanges to the outside of the car - was this correct?

Joe

The bushings are in in the right direction but are they only in half way? THey should stick out of the ear on both sides.

Tim.

I put them in until they bottomed out - they are stock replacement bushings... :confused:

Originally posted by jrb56:
I put them in until they bottomed out - they are stock replacement bushings... :confused: Can you post a pic? I'm with Juan on this. I think that you need to re-adjust the way that you have the rear end supported so that things will line up. The first time I worked on this type of suspension, I made that mistake graemlins/clonk.gif . Things will line up fine if you can manuever the pinion angle and the rear end height until the bolts slip fit. After that, things will be much easier. ;)

Good Luck!!!

I will get picture tonight.

The lowers are bolted on , the passenger side upper is on, and the shocks are on... just that one bolt to go.

The only thing funky is the rear end SEEMS like it is too far to the drivers side (but that could be a by product of shoddy fender replacement/body work!)

Hey Joe, another thought.... When you say that you pounded the bushings in until they bottomed out do you mean that the flange of the bushing (the flat outside part) is flush with the ear on the pumpkin? Or I am hoping that by flush you mean that they are in as far as they go which is about half way into the ear with about 1/2" sticking out of the ears. :confused:

Well taking pictures solved my problem...
graemlins/hurray.gif
My upper control arm is twisted slightly - when I thought I was lining up the outer bolt hole (the one I could see) - the inner had over rotated and was unaligned redface.gif (weird reference - but it is a good visual)

I got a bolt in from the inside, and will just have to "straighen" the outer side to get it thru.

Thanks to all for the help!!! :D

I have had the same problem on my 67 Malibu.
I just hammered a tapered punch about a 1/2" through the opposite side the bolt goes in and just used the other end of the punch as a lever and pried it until the holes lines up and the just slid my bolt through. I had my body off and was just an open frame. If you still have your body on, it might be really tough to do it my way.
good luck graemlins/thumbsup.gif
wes

graemlins/beers.gif