Moving forward, I was eager to get the front suspension reinstalled. I took the stock 84 springs and cut 1.5 coils off both springs. I used an angle grinder with a thin cut-off wheel. Yes, you could also use torches but let them cool naturally and do not quench them in water! Then followed a visit to the sandblaster to remove years of crud. Then a little paint.
Cleaned the outer tie rods since they were in great shape.
A little paint and new boots, and they're ready to go.
The stock front 88 sway bar bracket has a little slope to it.
Stock bracket on the left, aftermarket one, with poly bushing on the right.
Reassembly begins.
At this point, I decided to make my own flex lines and take a break from all the paint fumes.
This was relatively easy to do as I've done it before on my motorcycle. Having left over material from that endeavor, all I needed was the fittings. The local speed shop had these. Anyhow, here's the end result.
The lines I've seen for sale were all around 18" long. I didn't like that length as it seemed a little too short for my liking.
So, I chose to make mine 24" long.
TFS line on top, mine on the bottom.
I like to finish off the end by putting heat shrink tubing over the outer casing.
Since the finish on the 18" wheels was in sad shape, the sandblaster makes short work of removing all the old powder coating. Now they're ready for some colour! Off for coating next week.
Oh yeah, a 2002 Northstar dropout was in the classifieds. It ended up following me home. You never know when I'll need it.