It's amazing how a simple forgotten trick/tip can be such a time killer, I think I am a rusty as some of these bolts.
I wasted an hour or two last night with the silly spinning tie rod end.
Instead of prying the joint into back into the socket I was prying the joint out. Even took a couple of whacks at it with a cold chisel, started googling cutting torches.

Went back today, it took a couple of minutes once I pryed the joint back into the joint, no more spinning.... done...
No torch or chisel required.

On to the next tasks.

Frame is out of the car so there may be easier than the options available when the body is on the car.
Tips/ tricks welcome.


Remove final components on replacement frame.

1. Front shocks, (spinning bottom nut/bolt) tough to get a wrench on between spring coils.
2. Spindle nut/ time for a pipe on my breaker bar. Was flexing my 1/2 snap-on breaker bar
3. Front coil springs ( no weight to compress the springs.) thinking I need to chain around control arm and floor jack in order to compress/ control spring.
4. Front control arms.
5. Rear control arms.

Thanks

Tim

 

Speaking of tricks, we used to replace shocks a lot when I worked in a shop in the 80's. As you said the front ones always spin and hard to hold on to. Tip: put a 9/16" deep 1/2 inch drive socket and 2' extension on the top nut, shaft. Don't spin. bend extension towards front of car, then push back towards rear of car- back and forth over and over until shaft breaks off. Works great as long as you bend it below the nut- if not it will break off above the nut which isn't good. Of course this is if you are replacing shocks and going in the trash. Sometimes the a/c compressor is in the way but usually still works.

 

I have used that trick on shocks