Zack's '93 GL

[crazyrog17]

Its been my DD for a year now, I guess I should start a garage thread for it... Nothing special planned but hoping this will encourage me to do something noteworthy to the car more often.

Currently it's a blue 1993 Ford Festiva GL with the earlier LX interior, auto trans and a small sound system. Great commuter car, I'm happy with it. Netting about 30mpgs but I drive like a jerk and it varies a lot. More fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow!

Today I'm installing the LCAs and inner/outer tie rods with new bellows. Recently got new shoes for it (KUMHO 155/80 R12s) and don't want to slay this set like I did the last due to a bad alignment.

[crazyrog17]

Well already I've run into a problem. The welded/captured nut that the LCA pivots on has turned inside of the frame rail. Solution?

[timmay89]

on the rear or front? I believe the solution is chop chop with the hack saw.

[crazyrog17]

Thanks for your reply, the LCA in the front. I taped a screw to my index finger to get it up into the frame rail. I wedged it between the nut and it's little cage... Silly solution but it worked.

Just got the LCA off and ready for reinstallation. Don't know how well torquing that bolt will go, we'll see!

[Safety Guy]

Rog wrote:

"ll already I've run into a problem. The welded/captured nut that the LCA pivots on has turned inside of the frame rail. Solution?"

Before you ever do this again on another car, be sure and use copious amounts of PB Blaster on on not only the heads of the pivot bolts, but mainly on the captured nuts spot welded to the inside of the "frame rails" which you can access via one of the holes in the "rail." If you do this and it's not too far corroded, it will save you the trouble you have to go to now.

Okay, you'll now have to get a screwdriver or wedge shaped tool into the hole inside the rail and keep the nut from spinning. This may or may not work. You may have to enlarge the frame rail hole to do it. Or...

If this doesn't work, you'll need to enlarge that hole and bust off the captured nut so you can use an entirely new hardened bolt and nut to replace your pivot bolt. You'll need at least a Grade 10.0 bolt and nut, IIRC. So first, get a GOOD QUALITY, HARDENED bolt and nut for this application. Then you'll need to enlarge the nearest hole to the nut area so you can see and get some kind of tool in there to keep the new nut from spinning when you install the new bolt. (Also, I once used some chewing gum to help this process of getting the nut in place.) I used a large, good quality (Craftsman) flathead screwdriver to wedge the nut in place to tighten the bolt. Perhaps you may be able to get a small socket in there though.

This appears like you'll be tearing up your car, and you will, to some extent. But it is necessary to properly installing bolt and nut and properly torquing to specs.

Again, best way to avoid this is to PB Blast several days ahead of your suspension job. Also, when installing any new suspension hardware, consider using anti-seize compound so you can remove the parts later on with minimal trouble (and after using lots of PBB!)

Good luck, and feel free to get more opinions on this. I've only gone through it once, on my original Muttstiva for my first suspension swap. What a pain it was, too!!

Karl

[crazyrog17]

Blood, sweat and so far no tears haha.

[crazyrog17]

Work site's a mess.

[georgeb]

I had to cut my LCA bolt and bang out the cage nut. Just have a 3/8ths bolt and nut finger tight on there now (car is currently my parts shed). I eventually plan to get a bolt a little longer than the orig 10mm bolt, weld a tang on a 10mm nut to keep it from spinning and feed it through the original hole. The nut might have to be shaved because it's back in the corner of the frame channel. All this because I didn't use PB blaster!

[xaero_81]

Eww dirty. Somebody needs a bath! :-)

[htchbck]

Work site's a mess.

Negative sir, that is not a mess... I'll snap a picture of a mess when I get back over to dad's house where I've been redoing the timing chain and oil pan gasket on his Taurus for him And rebuilding a B3 in the same place at the same time. THATS a mess!

[crazyrog17]

New LCA on the driver's side installed. Only took me three days! Haha, didn't help that I stripped the threads off of the pinch bolt supplied with the LCA. That was fun, got to dust off the cut-off wheel.

[crazyrog17]

Finished the passenger's side LCA and had time to install a fuse and split loom on my amp's power line.

[crazyrog17]

This is my old bosch o2 sensor, just put in the $14 denso hoping for better mpgs and performance.

[tls_zx3]

performance will not really be affected by the o2 unless your talking about very light throttle. the car will go into open loop at high throttle and will not use the o2. only uses it at part throttle in closed loop to get 14.7-1 afr for fuel economy

[crazyrog17]

I can already feel the difference at part throttle. Much more responsive and doesn't bog out when I get on it a little.