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'55 Front Suspension and Steering Overhaul - pics!
Took me about 3 weeks doing this on weekends and nights. I am going to post a bunch of before and after pics. I did ream the kingpin bushings with a reamer. Used an entire shaft kit, new spings/shocks, and a steering cup kit.
After:
Last edited by madmax442.com; November 30th, 2023 at 10:30 AM.
Reason: typo
92K, it was well cared for no doubt. They greased the heck out of the front end over the years, thus all the muck. Everything did clean up very well. I am happy with the outcome. Taking it to the alignment shop on Thursday, bought the upper king pin caster/camber wrench on ebay.
Wow!! That's amazing!! How did you manage to get parts??? I have a 58 and I'm having a hard time looking for parts.
So, the shaft kit can be found at Fusick or on ebay. I bought mine on ebay. I bought the springs and insulators from Eaton Detroit Springs. I bought the lower control arm rubber bumpers off ebay, advertised for a Buick but they were almost an exact match. I bought the idler arm and other misc stuff from Fusick. I found toe adjustment couplings on ebay as NOS, they were Moog. The outer tie rods are available anywhere still. I bought the shocks off RockAuto. You do have to reuse your inner tie rod ends, I was lucky the ball ends were not worn that much, they cleaned up. The wheel cylinder kits were Dorman and only a few bucks, can still be found anywhere. I had to buy the kingpin long reamer from iscuttingtools.com that was $120, ouch. The 'ole one time use tool, gotta love that.
That looks fantastic! One of my upcoming projects is exactly this! I've all of the replacement parts. Mines a 1954 with the front hydraulic shocks which I've not yet checked out (they might need a visit to Apple Hydraulics for a rebuild). Beautiful job :-)
Well Madmax442 has inspired me (along with some handling/suspension issues) to redo the whole front end of my 1954 Olds Super 88. I've got everything apart and am finishing up the cleaning of the parts (most of the work is scraping off a bad undercoating job done around 1960) before painting. Lever arm shocks are off to Apple Hydraulics for rebuild as well (they were pretty leaky).
I've got a question however. After cleaning the cross link bar, I found what looks to be factory green paint on it. Which of these steering/suspension parts were paint something other than black? Attached are some photos of the crosslink bar. The car paint is Glacier Green/Polar White. The oil pan seems to be painted the same Glacier Green (I found after removing the undercoating). However the green on the cross link is more of an emerald green like the paint on the dash.
I'd like to try to keep things as reasonably original, particularly if it's just choosing the right color for the right parts on the undercarriage. Any thoughts?
Factory green paint on crosslink bar Factory green paint on crosslink bar
So, I too want to keep my '55 as close to original also, but I did not research the paint colors on the suspension/steering components (shame on me). I, however, did not see any green paint on any of my parts. I see a yellow marking on the steering linkage between the spindle and outer tie rod end, but I did not replicate that either.
I would suggest 2 options. VHT makes a Chassis Black (semi-gloss) that I like. I actually used Rust-o-leum Rust converter as a primer on most of my parts, then used VHT Gloss Black engine paint on most everything you see in my pictures. The VHT Engine paint lays on so well in my opinion, its forgiving and looks really well, again in my opinion. I am sure the Olds paint czar out there know the exact paint code, but for my I liked the gloss black engine paint, with option 2 being that semi-gloss Roll Bar and Chassis paint from VHT (I bought it from Autozone).
My only other thought would be the '54 and '55 324s are painted that same color green and it "may have been" overspray? The steering center tube runs right up next to the oil pan. I have see many engines retouched up with paint and that could have happened, albeit your looks like that first layer from back in the day.
Last edited by madmax442.com; December 7th, 2023 at 02:07 PM.
All these suspension parts were either sprayed or dipped in the cheapest black paint available.
The green paint was either an identifying mark or an inspector's mark.
If you want to duplicate it, get a small brush and some green paint and just dab it on.
So black it is. Any recommendations for semi-gloss vs. gloss black?
Agreed, all my suspension parts were black. Very original and ummolested when I was doing the work. It could be the overspray from the engine at the factory, as was suggested, but my thinking would be someone touched up the engine/trans/pan at some point and that's when you got some overpray.
Believe it or not, I used Rustoleum primer, and Satin black. Came out very nice.
November 27th, 2023, 11:16 AM
