Re: XJ6 lower A-arm bushings

["John T. Horner" <jthorner@garlic.com>]

> Possible, but not smart - it's easy to disconnect the lower ball joint,
and
> having the lower A-arms out on the bench makes it a lot easier and
quicker
> to change the bushes and get them correctly positioned (affects the
castor
> angle and hence all other angles). The hard part of this is anyway
getting
> the road springs out to avoid the big SPROING when you pull the inner
pivot
> bolt (to do which you need to drop the front cross-member, at least on my
> SIIs).
> 

At the advice of another jag-lover I used a simple technique for getting
the springs in and out safely.  I had the whole front suspension assembly
out of the car when I did this, but I suppose it would have worked with the
suspension in the car as well.

Remove the shock absorber.

Remove three of the six bolts which hold the spring pan onto the lower
a-arm while leaving the other three attached.  Obtain three sections of 1
foot long threaded rod of the same diameter and thread as the bolts just
removed.  Obtain three rod coupling nuts (they look like five or six
lengths of conventional nuts in height).  Thread the coupling nuts onto the
rod along with a flat washer.  Thread the three rods into the holes out of
which you have removed the three bolts.  Use a visegrip on the far end of
the rod to tighten the rods into the a-arm very snugly.  Now screw the
coupling nuts up against the spring pan.  Next remove the other three bolts
from the spring pan.  Now go around loosening the coupling nuts several
turns at a time and slowly let down the spring pan evenly.  Make sure there
is a flat washer between the coupling nuts and the spring pans so that the
washers take the wear instead of the spring pan doing so.

This is a slightly tedious method but seemed much safer and more controlled
than the big rod through the shock absorber hole method.

Reassembly is, as they say, the reverse procedure.

I don't know if this is in the XJ6 or XJS books yet, but it should be.

John H.

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