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upper wishbone, crossbeam reamed & bushed

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Old 01-12-2020, 11:53 AM
jrnsr's Avatar
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Default upper wishbone, crossbeam reamed & bushed

While troubleshooting the ABS dash light and other electrical problems, it was discovered the passenger wheel had around 1/8” slop forward and back. My newest acquisition was in a fender bender a decade ago, the fulcrum bolt was slightly bent and the holes in the crossbeam were wobbled out significantly. My repair went smoothly and the result is one upper wishbone suspension better than new, since the steel bushings will last a lifetime, won't oval out or seize. It helps to have a lathe to fabricate the custom reamer and machine the bushings; beg, borrow or steal a large angle drill, too.
Wheels were blocked, parking brake engage, front wheels turned to the right, car jacked up, right front wheel was removed and upper ball joint was released in preparation for removing upper wishbone. The first stumbling block was removing the bent fulcrum bolt, but most won’t face this issue. With the nut removed, the bolt was hammered forward just far enough to slice off the bolt head using an air die grinder with cutoff wheel. The bolt was then drifted back out about halfway and then it was sliced in half as it would’ve hit the inner fender liner. The wishbone was removed and the vertical link was wired to the spring and sway bar link to preserve the brake line.
The fulcrum bolt measured 5/8” diameter, surprisingly. An 11/16” reamer was selected to create a “magic wand” to ream the “aluminium” crossbeam.

11/16" reamer with Morse taper
A steel tube with 5/8” ID was cut approximately 4 1/2” long. The Morse taper and shank were turned down to a thousandth or two over 5/8” and the tube was press fit over the machined shank. The tube OD was turned down no more than 0.001” under the 11/16” dimension to serve as a guide to insure a perfectly true cut into the second, shorter hole that was slightly oval. The fluted end was ground down to assist in starting the cut. The very end was slightly smaller than 5/8” and smoothed so as not to cut, only guide the end inside the wobbled out aluminum holes. The flutes on the ground tapered portion were then carefully relieved with the air grinder/cutoff wheel to provide a decent cutting edge for the bulk of metal removal.

modified reamer
Once the reamer was chucked into my trusty old Milwaukee angle drill, and with a few squirts of oil wet the holes and reamer flutes, it took about a minute to slowly churn through the crossbeam, periodically extracting it to remove chips* and reoil.
*Allowing the flutes to fill up with chips can result in a nasty siezure.

angle drill with reamer, job well done
I found a piece of steel tubing with nominal dimensions of ½” ID and 11/16” OD for the new bushings. Once chucked in the lathe, a 5/8” reamer opened up the ID. A tubing cutter cut the two bushings to length about 1/8” longer than the measurable dimension on the face of the crossbeam; the back sides of the cast holes have a smooth “radius” (as opposed to sharp corner) so the backside of the holes were a touch longer, not that it really matters. A 5/8” bolt was essential for installation since the bushings are only 0.031 inches wall thickness, not paper thin but maybe equal to only 10 sheets of paper. The holes and bushings got a shot of brake cleaner and wiped down, then a coating of red Locate to insure they can’t drift inwards later on. A few small taps on the bolt head with a hammer drifted the bushings into place smoothly with a slight interference fit. The 5/8” reamer was spun in by hand just to check for burrs in the bushing IDs.
Since the original fulcrum bolt was toast, my shop provided an old 5/8” hard chromed cylinder rod for a replacement bolt. It was chopped to length and threaded for a 5/8-18 self locking nut.

used hard chromed 5/8" cylinder rod, before cutting & threading for new fulcrum bolt, much quicker, cheaper and better than buying a replacement
A half inch nut was chucked into the lathe and the 5/8” reamer opened up a perfectly smooth 5/8” hole. The nut was slid over the unthreaded rod end and TIG welded for a bolt head.

, 1/2" nut reamed to 5/8" and welded onto the chromed rod for the bolt head.

Once all the mating surfaces were gooped up with molybdenum disulfide grease, it was all assembled with select shims. All components are snug and move fluidly. Now, you may ask the million dollar question, "Do the polybushings rotate on the chrome shaft or the chrome shaft rotate in the steel sleeves?" The answer is “yes.” Both. When I snugged down the self locking nut, the shaft rotated within the steel sleeves in the crossbeam. After I backed the nut off barely a fraction of a turn, the shaft rotated easily in the steel bushings as well as the polybushings rotated on the chrome shaft, free and easy, snug with zero slop.
 

Last edited by jrnsr; 01-13-2020 at 01:28 AM. Reason: typo error and reattempt to attach images
The following 5 users liked this post by jrnsr:
cjd777 (01-16-2020), DavidYau (01-12-2020), Higgins (01-12-2020), michaelh (01-16-2020), volkris (01-16-2020)
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