You Might think about electroless nickel plating for that stuff,,,its cheap and works well out doors. I make a product that lives outdoors and thats what we use.


Its a satin finish as opposed to shiny chrome

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

Very nice. Keep the updates coming. We appreciate all the work you are doing!

Very nice. Keep the updates coming. We appreciate all the work you are doing!

Yeah that is mee above, HMMMMM.

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Marty
69 383 S Fastback
Toledo, Ohio

Thanks for the nice comments guys. I will look into the electro less nickel plating, that sounds interesting.

The bushings/bearings were the first parts I made, and I didn't think to take action shots of the machining. But they are made of Delrin, which is a brand name for a certain type of plastic for which the name isn't coming to me just now. It is wonderful to machine and I have made thousands of slot car wheels out of the stuff on my turret lathe. It is very strong stuff.

Here is a picture of the finished bearings as well as the urethane bushing I was originally going to use:



I decided to use the original bushing shells. I cleaned up the inside diameter with a wire wheel, then took a brake slave cyl hone to take out any imperfections and true up the "roundness" of the bores to some extent. There is one minor issue that doesn't really affect this project, but could affect the production of parts for a kit. The bushing shell in the LCA has a taper starting about halfway down the bore, not much of one, but it is there, and a bushing machined without it won't go in without having a sloppy fit on the Kmember side of the LCA. I just lightly sanded the ends of the bearings until they fit perfect, but I would need to inspect more LCA's before I could decide whether there is enough consistancy in the taper of the bushing shells to warrant manufacturing the taper into the bushings. The shells are very hard and don't hone that well to straighten the bore easily...I tried.

So the Delrin is not cheap if you go to Tap Plastics. There are cheaper sources in Portland, but Tap is close so I figured my time and gas into the equation...wow...$30 for a piece of 12" long by 2" dia...talk about sticker shock, I'm used to buying 500 feet of 3/8" rod in bulk...so it seems cheap...Its really fun to machine this stuff, you can take huge cuts and watch the material just fly off the part...makes for quick work.



The first Bearing I made was to test for chasis clearance...so I made the flange thin, and then tested the LCA in my parts car. After this, I split the bearing down the center to help me with later machining operations I knew were coming when I machine the LCA pins. Essentially, I can clamp the LCA pins into the lathe without damaging them...you'll see later when we get to the pins.

So I then machined the two bushings I will use. At this time I was just going to lube them up liberally, then keep track of wear and tear in the car, so I pulled them from the lathe with just the basic shape you see in the pictures:



This shape includes the thinner flange that moves the LCA forward in the frame. After taking measurements, it seems the LCA can go forward 1/4" without any risk of interference with anything else. There is a flange on the Kmember that I bent back slightly, but nothing that can't be done in moments with pliers.

After I had finished these, I decided to go ahead and make the LCA pins greasable. So I will have to chuck these back into the lathe and create channels for the grease to flow around the bearing. I am also going to have a channel that greases the Torsion bar end of the LCA pin where the "Dutra Disks" will be located.

When the time comes to chuck these up I will post the pictures of the making of the channels...but I haven't machined them yet...we are rapidly catching up to where I actually am in this project. I am just finishing the machining on the second LCA pin today or tonight...then I will finish the Delrin Bearings.

I don't really know whether they are considered bearings or not...but to me, the stiff fitting stock rubber, or urethane bushings are what at least automotive bushings are considered to be by most everyone...so when deliberately designing the system so that it is free moving with a sliding action in the LCA, I believe it is appropriate to consider these bearings.

OK...off to work again...I'll post more as soon as possible.

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Delrin = DuPont name brand for acetal resin. This onrunning article of yours is fantastic; thanks for taking the time to make the images and post up the descriptions. I'll be very interested to learn the results not only in terms of handling and adjustability, but also in terms of NVH (=Noise, Vibration and Harshness) and durability.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

wow gearhead... I'm amazed about your state of the art adjustable strutrods. The delring bearing is the same thing I did with my idler arm. Works better, no noise, no wear, better response, the steering is more obediant. Did you use the outter shells on the LCA delrin bushings? I already have adjustable strut rods so I'm one step away from doing this marvelous thing. Also, I'm working on UCA to body delrin bushings, splitted in 2 halfs that are to be pressed together over the UCA "ear". What do you think?

keep it coming, you genius machinist.

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Juan Ignacio Caino

Please use e-mail button istead of PM'ing. I do log in sometimes but I'll be answering quicker thru e-mail.

My hunch is that he's 100% correct in speculating that by making the joint free-moving, NVH will actually go down or remain the same despite a less "pliable" joint. When I stop and think about it, I find it hard to believe the factory even thought about using the old bonded-to-the-shells press-in bushings. That just seems really stupid in hindsight. My experience with Urethane bushings backs this up- they're MUCH harder than rubber, but NVH definitely went down in the Coronet R/T and I'm assuming that its due to the fact that they're also essentially a "bearing" that rotates on the LCA pin. Now in the 73 Satellite, I did a lot of other things at the same time I went to urethane bushings (hard urethane Kframe isolator disks, bigger sway bars, added rear sway bar, bigger torsion bars) and NVH went up *slightly*. But the handling gain was well worth it. Its starting to get a wee sloppy again now, but it still amazes me that a 32 year old car pushing 450,000 miles on the chassis drives as well as it does. I think I got chinese tie-rod ends with the early-production PST kit for the 73-up B-bodies, dammit. I know the upper ball joints were sh*t, because I had to replace them after only 15,000 miles and they were the low-end type where the ball rides directly in the socket, not the Moog style where there's an open cage that carries grease between the ball and socket. When I bought the PST kit for the R/T a number of years later, it had much better ball joints included, so I guess PST learned their lesson.

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I'm really diggin this stuff,,
Keep up the good work Gearhead !

Those are some amazing looking parts.

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longing for updates (tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap) fingers on the table

hope your health's fine, Karl (IIRC you were having dental issues? what a pain in the ford...)

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Juan Ignacio Caino

Please use e-mail button istead of PM'ing. I do log in sometimes but I'll be answering quicker thru e-mail.

I've been watching, too. Probably took off for the holiday weekend....it is a three-dayer. Hope he has a good time.

Roger

Hi Guys:

I've been meaning to post all week, but the problem is a recurring one...I get so deep into my projects, that one day I wake up and realize that the lawn hasn't been mowed in weeks, the trees are overgrowing the driveway, none of my bills have been paid, the kitchen floor is covered in some kind of dark looking stuff full of milling chips, my business partner is angry cause I keep wasting time on my stuff...and a few thousand other details.

So anyway...I have caught up on most the other stuff and spent a few hours going over the pictures, cropping them, getting the lighting right, throwing out the crap, moving directories around, and finally posting them to my site...now I can continue the thread.

Also, I got tired of machining suspension parts for a day or two and got a stick up my rear to finish another project...putting a larger carb on the Valiant. So I made an adaptor and did just that and will post about the results in the engine section.

So I will start now, then stop to go on a bike ride, and then post some more tonight and tomorrow.

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

OK...also, my teeth are fine it was just the allergies. But geeze, did they hurt for a week or so!!!!

So...the bearings are sized but still need to have the grease grooves cut into them, and one LCA pin is complete and the other on the lathe awaiting the very final machining. After my last post, I did in fact finish almost all of the second pin. The only things I need now are the "Dutra Disks" and I could install everything.

I have decided to install it with urethane bushings in the upper control arms because I already have them painted, pressed, ball joints installed since last year just waiting in the wings. I will pick up another set of arms and build bearings for them. Once installed, I can then compare the difference in ride.

The lower control arm pins...

Design criteria:

At first I was just going to modify the stock ones by turning down the end (bushing end) and drilling and tapping for the disks to hold the LCA in place...this, of course, was while I still intended to use urethane bushings cut down to move the LCA forward. But then I got my mill, and started going nuts, so I decided to make pins as well.

I looked at the ones on Firmfeels site, and I liked the idea of greasable, especially with delrin bearings. But the pins they make are basically just stock replacement. I also wanted to have a larger thrust flange for the bearing to seat against and reduce stress on the pin where it is close to the K-member (or actually, to reduce stress on the bearing by distributing the side load of the LCA into the flange area of the bearing instead of the Inside diameter.) Does that make any sense???

So anyway, its time for a picture, here is one that shows the pin after I have machined the bearing end. I am just starting to make a pass or two on the inside (k-member) of the pin. For those who know some machining, it is obvious in this pic that I can't use this setup for long:



This is the lathe tool I used to put the finish on the outer portion, just after turning the generous, strength producing radius on the bearing to flange interface. At this point I just quickly moved the tool over to the inside and cut away some excess material, but I couldn't go far or deep cause the quick change tool post would hit the flange. So time for a different tool...



So here I have change the tool and the position of the tool holder so that I can make aggressive, fast work of getting rid of all the extra metal. I used 12L for the pin. This is a good, high quality, strong steel that machines about as well as could be hoped for...it has extra lead in the alloy which really makes it cut well, much better than the standard cold rolled (of which 12L really is also a "cold rolled" but is not usually referred to as cold rolled like the tough to machine stuff is...) The 12L has a tensile strength of about 60,000 psi and is more likely to bend than break which is why I thought it would work well for the pins.



As you can see in the photos, you can cut large amounts of material at a time...in this case about 1/8"...which is 1/4" per pass removed...and it doesn't even need coolant, just peels the metal away...wonderful...!!!!

So in this next picture below I have cut out a few steps and setups so as not to bore you...basically, I just kept changing tools and angles of the cross slide to cut the tapers and get the finished diameters. I held everything just a bit larger than stock for added strength, but didn't go overboard cause I didn't think I needed too.

Also, I measured and ground my own tools to replicate the radius on the k-member. The radius on the front side I ground myself but just eyeballed it for good strength...radius' can be tough to machine cause the chips congregate in the center of the radius and bind up...but attention to detail and patience prevails creating lovely parts:



If you look in the lower image, you can see where I have already drilled and tapped the end for the "Dutra disks" to be machined after final measuring of the assembly in the LCA (but also, I wanted a center hole to place my live center, so that I could make those big cuts even as the shaft got small...you can see the live center in the cutting picture above). Forgot to take pictures of that operation...it is easy to just get in a mode, and forget about time, picture taking, etc.

So at this point in the machining, I need to pull the pin from the chuck, turn it around, and somehow get it to rotate true on center again so I can drill the grease channels and finish the tapping operations.

OK...now a quick 15 miles on my bike...

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Nice set of SM handcuffs. I'd like to order one from you, sandy

Gearhead: amazing piece of work, brother. !

so you decided to go no shell at all in the LCA delrin bearings... I think it would hold up to the stress. Delrin is so noble...

couple of Q: in the pix, the overall final lenght for the bearing side of the pin hasn't been set, am I right? you'll take up measurements and leave exactly how much clearance btwn the dutra disc and the bearing itself?

_________________
Juan Ignacio Caino

Please use e-mail button istead of PM'ing. I do log in sometimes but I'll be answering quicker thru e-mail.

I decided to use the original factory bushing shells as the bearing surface for the Delrin. I wire wheeled the inside of the shell, and then used a three stone brake hone to finish the inner bore.

You are correct that I machined the bearing end of the pin to be short by .100" or so. The reason is that I want to make a disk that is smaller than needed, then use shim washers to set the clearance in each LCA, and then make disks to custom fit each LCA. The LCA has a fair amount of play in its bearing system for the torsion bar. I have clamped the end in a vice and got rid of a large portion of this...So I plan to weld strips accross the back of the control arm to tighten this up. I might buy or build my own of the bottom plates such as ARengineerings offerings. But the rear plates I need to make myself as I've never seen any available.

So as I stated before, now it's time to reverse the pin in the lathe. For those who are not machinists or know much about it...this is easier said than done. Most people would assume that with a three jaw self centering chuck, you would just turn it around. However, even high dollar lathes don't perform significantly better at this...three jaw chucks have inherent tolerance that makes it difficult to chuck to within about .003" concentricity. You can sometimes just keep moving the part around and retighten, but there is no sure way to get it good and it may never happen. So we use a four jaw chuck to eliminate this problem and allow for a structured method for centering.

A four jaw chuck can be used with a dial indicator to get a part to center fairly quickly. Here is a picture:



Here you can see that I used the extra bearing I split earlier in the post to use as a clamp to hold the pin without damaging it. Slitting the bearing gave it clearance to tighten around the pin. By eyeballing the part to as center as possible by tightening the jaws one at a time...I finally get it within an 1/16" or so and then set up the indicator on the end so I can read the exact amount.

Now I just find the high side, and adjust the appropriate jaw until it starts to get more true. This is known as "indicating in" the part. Most machinists don't care for doing this cause it can be a hassle and frustrate even the most soft spoken machinists. However, I have always looked at it as a challenge and it doesn't bother me much...(although on occasion it can be a pain)...in this case it went easily, easier than normal even, perhaps due to the delrin clamp for some reason. It is quite easy to true up to .002" or so. A little patience and time will bring .001-.0015" fairly easily...but tighter than .001" can be tough sometimes. Better lathes can make this a little easier, but not by much. I got this one true to .0005" cause I needed it good for the long grease channel and future cross drilling of that channel for the bearing grooves.

So the next step is to turn the end down to the pins final length, then drill and tap for the grease fitting, drill the grease channel, and finally, tap the main threads for the nut that holds the pin in the k-member.

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Next operation is drilling the hole for the grease fitting threads...the distance this drill goes into the end of the pin is distance I don't have to drill with the .093" (3/32") drill for the grease channel. This small a drill always brings the risk of breaking it off in the part, the fact that you need to go 6" or so doesn't help at all !!!

Also, the larger drill will provide a tapered center to start the small drill spot on center. Now it is not that common to find long length small drills of the extra length I needed, and even more uncommon for long flutes for clearing chips, instead of extended legth for farther reach (which would have just an inch or so of flute). I had to take a two tiered solution as long flute drills would have needed to be ordered. I was able to find two drills in stock that would work, but be more dangerous and tedious to accomplish the job.

So I bought two of each to be safe (they were cheap...like $1.90 each) Just in case they started to wear out after such a long use...(which turned out a non issue)...what I got was one 4.25" drill with 2.3" flutes that I used to start the holes as deep as I could (about two inches) and then a 6" extension drill with 1.25" flutes that I used to finish the hole.

Here is a picture:



I didn't get a photo of the shorter drill, but it went as deep as I could with it. Using much cutting oil, I ran the drill in .200" at a time, or until I could feel any significant resistance, then pulled it back, cleared the chips, re-oiled, and did it again...over and over and over. When I switched to the long extension drill, I had to start only going about .125" (1/8") before the chips would build up and generate friction deep inside the channel...I sure didn't want it to break!!!!

This is where CNC machines and flood coolant are just wonderful things...

I was able to save a little time with the extension drill by loosening the tailstock and dragging the drill out fast, rather than using the tailstock handwheel. Then I would run it back in the hole quickly, sliding it along the lathe bed, when it got close to where it would cut, I locked it down and grabbed the handwheel...it was still tedious, but as I've said, I get in a mode and then it just doesn't bother me...I just keep at it till it is done!



So here you can see it is all the way in, and the drill is chucked as close to the end as I thought safe. Unfortunately, it is still not deep enough to reach the Dutra Disk portion of the rear of the pin, which brings with it a problem I will describe now...

So I am making the second pin different, and drilled about 2/3 of the way from the back of the pin side during the first setup on the lathe, so I can finish when I chuck it up in the split bushing. I didn't think of that with the first one, and now I have to turn down a bushing to clamp and indicate in the first pin... back the other way to complete the channel...stupid me!!!! In my defense, I think I started the first pin before I decided to also grease the Dutra disk portion of the assembly.

Oh well...

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"