Front Spindles
I gathered up the
front spindles from their box and the remaining ball joints in preparation
for mounting them to the control arms. To orient them correctly, the
arm is pointed towards the front and extends from the bottom part of the
spindle assembly. In the picture, right is the left spindle and left is
right spindle.
Here is the left front
one mounted looking towards the rear. The instructions call for two
washers under the bottom nut and one under the top nut. Again, I could
not find any washers in the box with the ball joints (per the instructions)
so I used ones I bought at the hardware store (Grade 8 hardened). The
number of suggested washers worked out right to position the nut to accept
the cotter pin.
To get the ball joint
nuts tightened down, I had to unscrew the shocks to provide slack.
After tightening the nuts, I re-tightened the shocks as far as I could with
my hands. Another trick with the ball joints is to use pin punch and
use it to twist the ball joint around so the cotter pin is pointing front to
back. Otherwise you might not have clearance to install the
cotter pin on the top nut.
Front Brakes
All the parts for the Wilwood 12" brake upgrade come in a single box with the exception of the
spindle nuts. I couldn't find them so I had to order those from the
local NAPA store. I also had to buy some high temperature wheel
bearing grease specifically for disk brake applications. The
instructions for the brakes are pretty straight forward and there is a parts
explosion diagram which provides a good overview of how it all fits
together.
First step is to
install the caliper bracket to the spindle with the low profile nuts
provided and some Red Locktite. Make sure the nutserts are oriented
properly per the instructions.
Next, the rotor is
bolted up to the adaptor plate. Be sure to use your torque wrench to
tighten the bolts. The adaptor plate is aluminum and you can pull the
threads right out of it if you over-tighten the bolts. I also
installed the wheel studs into the hub. The proper wheel stud
measurement is 4.5" on our cars. The hub gives you two options and
ours is the shorter diameter. The plans then call for the bolts to be
safety-wired together. I fortunately have a set of safety wire pliers
which makes the job simple. The idea is to tie the wire so that it is
pulling the head down tighter.
These pictures show
the safety wire ties. On the inner hub, I chose to go with one set of
wires to make it easier. This is an acceptable standard and you don't
have to tie them off in pairs.
The bearing are then
packed with grease and the entire assembly is mounted to the axle.
Once on, the caliper is mounted and centered using spacers per the plans.
Later on, I will probably paint the calipers to match the body color but I
won't mess with that right now.
Next part of the
assembly is the steering rack and that work is on the next page.
| 
