Editors note: This is the tenth page on Paul's Journey
of restoring his 1959 Cadillac Sedan Deville. If you missed any parts feel
free to go back to page 1 of Paul's
1959 Cadillac restoration.
Here we are even further down the track – Blair has
lost his bad hair and got taller! Here we are installing the new shafts
and ball joints to the upper and lower control arms for the front
suspension. These parts form part of the major suspension rebuild kit
that we purchased from KANTER. Once again the control arms have had the
blast and paint treatment. The existing shafts were nearly impossible to
remove and got the grinder treatment. On the right Blair looks to be
cleaning up nuts and bolts on the wire wheel. This machine is without a
doubt priceless during this type or restoration work, although a lot of
bolt fasteners are replaced with new high tensile bolts it’s not always
necessary. Note the newly fitted out lower control arm sitting on the
bench ready for installation.
Blair fitting the upper control arm on the cars right
side. With the lower control arm fitted as well we now need to install
the front spring and compress it far enough as to allow the upper and
lower ball joints to be fastened to the steering knuckle (upper) and
steering arm (lower).
This poses a problem given the sheer amount of energy required to
compress a spring of this size without the weight of the car plus
engine. I have made a custom bracket to connect the chassis to the
workshop floor with masonry anchors, this will allow us to compress the
spring by way of a small trolley jack whilst the frame is firmly held
down.
As described before. The jack has compressed the
spring enough to hook it up and bolt it off the steering knuckle at the
top of the brake backing plate and the steering arm at the lower of the
plate. You will also see in the image two small spring compression tools
that were needed just to reduce the height of the spring enough to be
able to get it into position prior to jacking. This is me doing the same
to the left side of the car. The amount of energy stored in this size
spring is quite scary and it pays to be vigilant, I have heard of people
being killed by trying to cut corners with such installations.
With the right side bolted up safely, Blair still has
a bit of tension on the lower arm to allow the shock absorber to be
installed. By the way it’s not a funny shade of light – Blair actually
has green hair due to a school sports carnival! This image pretty much
shows the front end fully reassembled. Note we have also refitted the
steering box that has been fully reconditioned by Alan Walton in
Melbourne as was the draglink. We have also reinstalled the stabilizer
bar and renewed the linkages and rubber bushings at both ends. Also the
as per the rear we have replaced all the brake components and rerun the
lines.
Next page 1959 Cadillac
restoration page 11
