Trailing Arms

The frame is ready

The trailing arm is in.

There are parts of this process that I literally dream about, and many more that I simply think about all the time, but the task I completed yesterday was one I have been anticipating eagerly for the last couple of months in particular.  This was the replacement of the rear trailing arms.

With the new bushings pressed in, it was a simple, but time consuming matter of buffing off all the rust and dirt patina, priming, painting and re-installing.  The surfaces of the trailing arm are extremely complex, so I had to settle for getting most of the crud and minimizing the rest.  I also finished painting the rear torsion beam and all the mounts, so the frame was ready to receive the newly refurbished parts.

It looks good, right?

Well, it was installed wrong.

Of course, I had trouble recalling just how it went back together at first, so, the first thing I did was to put the left trailing arm in incorrectly.

However, thanks to this blog and the Xoom tablet, I was able go online and to find some pictures of what it looked like before I took it apart.  It turns out that the two big washers actually go next to each other (not on either side of the bushing as seemed logical) and the nuts (with the thin washers) go on the outside of the spring plate.

Back in, correctly!

How it looked when it came out...

Before...spring bolts.

After, spring bolts.

Having the 'before' picture is more than a nice device to show how much progress I've made.  It's also a good way of seeing how it is supposed to go without pondering the cryptic and woefully under-illustrated manual.  The manual will simply say, "remove/replace the bolts" while saying nothing about the direction it's supposed to go, or order of the washers.

Well, with the left side back in correctly, it was quite easy to put the right side in, all done before dark.

Before...trailing arm bolt.

After, trailing arm bolt.

As I have said, and will no doubt say again frequently as this thing comes together, this is a very satisfying part of the process.  Dreaming of the moment doesn't even compare to the pleasure I get when those nice clean parts fit into their places.

The nice part about this is that I have several more months of it to look forward to.

Next, it's back to the front end for some heavy metal.