The Rabbit Hole Gets Deeper....

Hello Gray Ghost Fans!

A quick update to keep you posted on progress towards the "great welding experience."  As you may recall, I've decided that I'm tired of getting all the old crud on me, every time that I crawl into the engine bay.  To fix this, I'm cleaning off the muck.  In the process, I discovered that the grease seals on the front shackles had to be replaced.  Well, today, I got the passenger side shackle disassembled....

What I found was that the shackle pin and bushing on the bottom were severely worn and in need of replacement.  The pins are shown below, with the upper pin on the left and lower pin on the right:

Passenger Side Shackle Pins

It's pretty obvious that the pin on the right is damaged.  I haven't removed the bushings, yet.  I'll need the replacements to help drive the old ones out of the springs.  At this point, I'm down hard, waiting for parts.  Hopefully, it doesn't take too long to get them in.

I know what you're thinking, what about the cleaning?  Fair enough.  Here's a shot of the before and after on the passenger side of the frame:

Before cleaning

After cleaning and primer

A keen eye will notice that the shocks are removed in the "after" pic.  I have replacements that I'll install after rebuilding the shackle.  The primer is my favorite Rustoleum Rust Converter.  I'll lay down a coat of satin black after all of the other work is done and before the shocks are installed.  Frankly, it's a "10 foot" paint job, but that's ok.  Most of this will be covered up by the inner fenders, so it's just for me and keeping it from rusting too much more.

I'll do a complete write up on the cleaning with lots of pics, once all of the other work is done.  So stay tuned!