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Elite Veteran
Posts: 769
  
Location: Oley, PA | The control arm bushings on my 59 Windsor are pretty shot, both uppers and lowers.
While I'm at it, I'm thinking about doing a full rebuild of all the major wear items including control arm bushings, ball joints, tie rod ends, and strut bushings.
I have a kit with all those parts I purchased on eBay for my 61 Newport, but the Newport doesn't really need them. Can I use this kit for my 59 Windsor? My cursory research says they are the same parts for all those years 57-61. Does anyone here know differently?
I haven't decided if I want to do the work myself or if I want to pay someone to do it. The last time I did this job was in the late 1980s or early 1990s. My memory is a bit cloudy but I do seem to recall that it was a pain the ass job, particularly, getting the old bushings out. I know the shop manual has the full procedure but of course it specifies all of the special tools that I don't have.
Does anyone have any good tips or know of an updated procedure. All advice is welcome.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 769
Location: Oley, PA | Nobody replied to my question, but I thought I'd provide an update just in case it's helpful to anyone.
The suspension kit I purchased on eBay for my 61 Newport worked out just fine on my 59 Windsor. I ended up having my mechanic do the work using the parts I provided. He charged me about $550 in labor to do the job. Money well spent, at least from my point of view. He replaced upper and lower control arm bushings, all 4 ball joints, both tie rod ends, strut rod bushings and front shocks. He also did the front end alignment.
The one thing I didn't think of in advance was the idler arm. Turns out the idler arm bushing was badly worn. I should have inspected this myself before sending the car to my mechanic. He brought it my attention, but since we didn't have the part, it wasn't addressed at the time. I bought an idler arm ball bearing kit (for $25) on eBay to replace the bushing. I ended up doing that part of the job myself. It took me about a day, most of which was spent beating the old bushing out.
A pain in the butt job, but now my Windsor drives nice and tight.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1141
Location: Blackpool, United Kingdom. | Since you have already done the job for future reference , any bushing bolts are best left loose and tightened either with car back on ground or the suspension compressed to ride height, so as not to load up the rubber bushings if tightened with car in the air and suspension on droop? |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 769
Location: Oley, PA | springsweptwing - 2016-12-20 7:31 PM
Since you have already done the job for future reference , any bushing bolts are best left loose and tightened either with car back on ground or the suspension compressed to ride height, so as not to load up the rubber bushings if tightened with car in the air and suspension on droop?
Thanks for mentioning that. That's a really important thing to remember if you ever do this job yourself. I learned that lesson the hard way, back in the 1970s when I did this job my very first time. I remember reading that step in the procedure after tightening everything up and lowering the car down off the jacks. My thought at the time was oh well, it probably doesn't matter that much. Well.. the upper control arm bushings ate themselves up within a couple of months after installation and I had to do it all over again. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1102
Location: Hayward, Calif | I did all the front suspension bushings on wife's 59 Dodge. All the bushings that needed to be pressed in I took to a machine shop and let him do it. It wasn't very expensive and saved me all the frustration of doing it myself. I personally would recommend doing it this way, as it will be done professionally with a minamal amount of brutality involved Jerry |
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Expert
Posts: 2519
Location: central Illinois | 59 in Calif - 2016-12-22 9:24 AM
I did all the front suspension bushings on wife's 59 Dodge. All the bushings that needed to be pressed in I took to a machine shop and let him do it. It wasn't very expensive and saved me all the frustration of doing it myself. I personally would recommend doing it this way, as it will be done professionally with a minamal amount of brutality involved Jerry
Pretty much how I do mine. I tear them apart and have the control arms blasted to remove rust, then take to machine shop to have the bushings replaced. Once home I clean good and tape off the new parts so the arms and such can be painted.
Back to the original message, did your mechanic suggest an alignment check after repairing the idler arm? |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 769
Location: Oley, PA | b5rt - 2016-12-22 3:48 PM
Back to the original message, did your mechanic suggest an alignment check after repairing the idler arm?
Oh yes he did. He aligned it as well as he could with the worn idler arm in place (which is not that good) and told me to bring it back when I was ready so he could realign. I haven't actually done that yet, but I will.
Edited by Greg P. 2016-12-26 6:06 PM
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59 Windsor - Front Suspension Rebuild Questions
