Undressing

Time to get to work.

I've decided to tackle the suspension and steering first. This creates a minor problem, as the springs are designed to be taken out with the weight of the engine on the car--as light as the car is now, the springs would just throw the car up in the air if the suspension were unbolted. But there's a sneaky way of getting around this; you'll see in a minute.

First, off comes the disc brake caliper, which is then bungee tied to the frame so it doesn't stress the brake hose:

Next, the tie-rod end is removed from the steering arm--one of the few times working on a car when you actually get to use a big hammer:

Next, I pulled the brake disc and hub assembly. If I weren't replacing the a-arms with the ones I rebuilt previously, I could just leave them on--but since that's not the case, off they come:

After removing the adapter bracket for the brake caliper, I removed the sway bar from the lower a-arm by unbolting two bolts and removing the retaining clips:

Then I removed the shock absorber:

Now for the alternative spring removal method: a 1/2-inch piece of all-thread, double-nutted on each end, with a fifth nut to tighten and then loosen the tension on the spring:

Then it was simply a matter of removing the four bolts holding on the lower a-arm, carefully releasing the tension on the spring by loosening the fifth nut on the all-thread slowly. Once the pressure was off, it was simply a matter of removing the top two bolts.

Next up, I removed the steering components--a few more bolts, and some careful tapping with the hammer and pickle fork...

My parts stack is growing

Then it was simply a matter of "lather, rinse, repeat" on the other side...

After removing the steering center bearing (it was very greasy, so I didn't take any pictures of the process--it was simple: remove the four bolts holding it on, remove the grease zert in the side, then slide it out the bottom of the front cross member) I was left with a naked front frame section, ready to clean up and paint.