• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

TR6 TR6 front bushings and springs questions

Share this page

SCguy

SCguy

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
Tomorrow I'm going to install nylatron bushings and Goodparts springs in the front of my TR6.

I'm pretty sure it will go well, but I've never worked on my front end before. Can some one lay out the sequence of how I should tackle this job? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

(I have a moss spring tool to help with the springs)
 
Shock out. Spring out. Caliper off - don't bother detaching it, just tie it out of the way.
The manual tells you how to do all this. It's simple.

Do the bottom bushes first. Only replace one half of one side at a time so you don't have to remember how it goes back together - less chance of reversing the arms that way, and less disassembly required.

If you don't have a press you will be saving yourself a ton of grief if you get one.

The bottom are pretty simple. You have to take off one of the brackets to get to one of the bolts on each side. The other one you can do directly.

The top is a different story. You'll get it apart easy enough. Putting it back together will require you to "massage" the bodywork to get it back over the trunnion - the inner wing gets in the way.

Forget taking off the trunnion - I wasted an hour trying. I could find no way to do it without removing the body. After much sweat and many words with only 4 letters in them, I ended up using a 4' wrecking bar to flex my inner wing back enough to get the a-arm back on. If you are careful you won't damage anything (I didn't even scratch the paint!!).

The rest of putting back together is the opposite of disassembly. It's pretty easy apart from those top a-arms. They are a real pita.
 
If you disassemble everything, you will not have to use the crowbar method for reassembly. This will also provide an opportunity to clean and inspect all the parts before reassembly. Also a great time to paint should you wish.
Keep track of you shims, although I found that with Richard Good springs I couldn't use the shims due to camber problems.
For total disassembly, you would also need a separator for the ball joint and tie rod end.
It will probably take you more than one day regardless of how you perform this task.
 
I just finished the front end on mine last month. It took me a long time thanks to other commitments, but I would agree that it is well over one day's work, especially if you want to clean things up and paint.

I found that it was pretty easy to get the top wishbone pivots off the chassis - just make sure you soak the bolts overnight with penetrating oil, and then be patient with a ring spanner - no clearance for a socket. Access to the inner bolts is pretty easy from the engine bay - I didn't even have to move the alternator. If you break the head off one of those bolts, though, I have no idea how you would remove the shaft without removing the body...

If you have the two piece bushes for the bottom inner wishbones, then they should go in pretty easily (with a little persuasion!) and I found getting the old rubber ones out was easier than I expected - I used some wire cutters to remove the rubber "flange" on one side and then put the old bolt through the bush and hammered it out. Took maybe five minutes in total to replace all four of those bushes.

That's about all the help I can offer - good luck lining up the spring bottom pan with the studs on the wishbones!
 
The front suspension rebuild presents no difficulties, although it will be tedious. Just do one side at a time so you have the other as a reference if you get some of the bits mixed up. You should plan to also replace the upper ball joint (it simply unbolts from the A-arm halves) and the steering ball joints. These are best removed using the dual hammer impact approach instead of a joint separator IMHO. Be sure you have all the washers & seals for the lower trunnion rebushing and refill with GL4 gear oil (no grease!). Don't be alarmed when you get everything put together and the wheels are very difficult to move--this is completely normal and will ease when you load the suspension with the wheels on the ground.

I have found absolutely no interference with body panels for the complete R&R of the front suspension.
 
Forgot to mention that you need to keep track of the [camber] shims installed behind the lower A-arm frame mounts. You should reinstall them as you found them, but head to a competent alignment shop after you're done to get the camber & toe set to spec as the rebuild will change everything.
 
Back
Top