OK, no questions, just a sign that it's the Holidays and I have a bit more time to play with my Dart.

I have some 73-76 LCA's and I was up late in the garage cleaning them up and removing the bushings. I pressed out the pins, the rubber came out easily, the inner sleeve on the pin was easy...but then the dreaded outer sleeve left in the LCA. The article on Mopar muscle says just weld a thick washer to the sleeve's lip and press it out from the other side. I'm not a great welder (like my Dad was), so I was afraid I'd get too good of weld penetration and weld the sleeve to the LCA...so, I took a hacksaw blade and made a cut down the inside length of the sleeve about 1/2 way through the sleeve, then started bending the lip inward using a flat blade screwdriver (a chisel is too sharp it cuts through it and a punch wouldn't grab as well) and a hammer on one side of the cut. This worked very well, it split along the cut as I folded it inward with the screwdriver and hammering. When it was about halfway down the cut, I used a small chisel to split it down the seam the rest of the way and it came out pretty easily with a bit more folding in with the chisel.

Now to remove the rust, cut the bumper plate weld on one side, take the slop out, reweld the bumper plate and weld strengthening plate to the bottoms. If anyone hasn't seen this done, here is an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwes-SP8u4w

bg

FYI,

BG

I removed all the grease and dirt, and I noticed there was some residue of a glue or something on the torsion bar adjuster bit, between the lower LCA ends, see pic here: http://s785.photobucket.com/user/67dart ... sort=1&o=0

It was old and broke off in chunks. Is this something to protect the weld or what?

I'm going to take the slop out of the LCA here, but has anyone considered putting some teflon bushings in between where the two halfs mate with the torsion bar adjuster, where it swivels in here? Seems like it doesn't get much lateral force, only up and down, swiveling in the joint; wouldn't some bushings in between make it smoother, less squeaking potential, snugger?

Thanks,

Bg

If you haven't tried it, Evaporust is awesome. Below are my LCA's as I got them, after I removed the grease and dirt, then overnight soak in evaporust. Also, totally unrelated, there's a nice pic of a dart wagon I saw at the train station...

http://s785.photobucket.com/user/67dart ... 7.jpg.html

http://s785.photobucket.com/user/67dart ... f.jpg.html

http://s785.photobucket.com/user/67dart ... 7.jpg.html

http://s785.photobucket.com/user/67dart ... 6.jpg.html

Happy Holidays,

BG