1989 Econovan Maxi - Suspension Refurbishment

Last Friday (11 January 2008) I decided I should probably get the squeaky front suspension noises in my Econovan checked out. The shop that I took it to had a thorough look, and told me that pretty much all of the suspension bushings needed replacement, and that the ball joints and tie rod ends looked a bit suspicious as well. I agreed that this sounded bad, but I thought that their $1700 quote to remedy the problem was a little high.

Accordingly, I've invested in the following replacement parts and tools:
Full set of neoprene suspension bushings $390
Upper and lower ball joints (both sides) $120
Pair of tie rod ends $70
Ball joint separator tool $20
25mm and 26mm combination spanners $35
Sub Total $635

Friday 18 January 2008

I had some errands to do in the morning, so I only had time to deal with the rear suspension bushings in the afternoon. As it turned out, the parts I'd bought for the front eyes of the leaf springs were the wrong size, but the existing ones were still OK. The lower shackle bushes were the only ones showing bad wear, and the pins on both were rusty and pitted. I cleaned them up and put them back in, but I'll try to find some better units from a wrecker ASAP.

Saturday 19 January 2008

On Saturday I started work on the front suspension. Things went pretty much as I expected, in that most of the larger bolts and nuts needed a lot of heaving to get them loose. So much so that I needed an extension bar on my big spanner quite a few times. For once I didn't lose too much skin or blood in the process, either. ;-)

The only real surprises were that I needed to remove the radiator to be able to get at the bolts securing the upper control arm fulcrum rod, and one of the gear shift linkage rods had to be unbolted to make enough room to remove the driver's side upper control arm. Still, you've got to expect things to be packed in tightly in a van-style vehicle.


I thought I'd need the tarpaulins to shade me from the sun, but instead it rained all day!
There's the bolt that I had to remove the radiator to reach. Obviously I also had to remove the driver's seat and some tinwork as well.

Weather-resistant parts removed today, separated into piles for left and right.
It's probably just as well I had to remove the radiatior, it's picked up a lot of grass seeds from driving through the long grass in my paddock (I'd already cleaned it up quite a bit before taking this photo).

Monday 21 January 2008

Dropped off the control arms at a suspension workshop, since they're equipped with all the right tools to remove the old bushings and insert the new ones. I was only able to give them the upper bushings though, because the lower ones haven't arrived yet from Repco/Noltec. That's OK, since I'll probably be able to fit the lower ones myself using some judicious heating of the arm (with a gas torch) and cooling of the bushings (in a freezer) first.

I expect it'll cost me, but I'll have saved myself a few hours of labour charges by removing them from the vehicle myself.

Wednesday 23 January 2008

Still waiting on the lower suspension arm bushings. Not that I'll be able to do anything with them until the arms are done anyway (hoping for Friday, expecting Saturday/Sunday).

Friday 1 February 2008

Friday is my day off, so I went to the garage to collect my suspension arms. In a remarkably generous move, they decided to only charge me $110 for removing the old bushings, and nothing at all for fucking up the installation of the new ones, damaging one of the arms and destroying one of the brand-new bushings in the process. The damaged bushing is one of a set of 4, that can only be bought as a set of 4, for $127. >:-/

Shortly after that little test of my self-control I headed off to a wrecker and spent a couple of hours lying on my back beneath a Mazda E1800 van removing its suspension arms, which had clearly been re-bushed by a much more competent mechanic not so long ago. The 4 suspension arms (with ball joints still fitted) and a set of front shock absorbers in much better condition than my own cost me $220.


The replaced parts. From the top: lower suspension arms, rear shackle bushes, lower ball joints, sway bar bushes, tie rod ends, upper ball joints, upper control arms, shock absorbers.
What a nice, professional bit of work! I swear, I'm disappointed far too often by the shoddy workmanship of people who should be capable of better.

Saturday 2 February 2008

Spent 41/2 hours under the truck, slowly and methodically fitting the new parts back into place. I was successful in that I didn't have anything unexpected left over, and I didn't have to dismantle anything to be able to reach something I'd missed. The fact that it wasn't raining made the job quite a bit more comfortable.

After filling the radiator up with clean water, I went for a 30km drive to see how it felt, and buy a bottle of anti-freeze. Even without a wheel alignment it's handling better than it ever has since I've owned it. That's not too surprising, seeing as how it had 380,000km on the clock when I bought it, and the new shock absorbers are about 50% bigegr in diameter than the ones they replaced.


Angus sitting back on all fours again, after 2 weeks up on blocks.
New and slightly-used parts fitted. The ball joints on the replacement arms were still OK, so I left them in place. You can see the sway bar bushings and the new tie rod end.
New rear shackle bushings. The ones with the rusty pin through them probably won't last long, but I've got spares now and it's a trivial job to replace them when I locate a new pin.

Tuesday 5 February 2008

Got a wheel alignment, and cancelled the order for the lower control arm bushings. The truck is handling quite a bit better now, as you'd expect since the toe-in was corrected by about 8mm. ;-)

Total cost:
Full set of neoprene suspension bushings $390
Upper and lower ball joints (both sides) $120
Pair of tie rod ends $70
Ball joint separator tool $20
Bigger, "pickle fork" ball joint separator tool $15
25mm and 26mm combination spanners $35
Labour to useless git mechanic $110
Used control arms, shock absorbers $220
Antifreeze $10
Wheel alignment $45
Total $1035

I'm pretty pissed off that it's cost me $1035 in total when I could have gotten the job done for $460 if I'd gone to the wrecker in the first place. One day I'll learn.

Still, I've got a spare set of suspension arms, ball joints, and some slightly-used neoprene suspension bushings now :-/.

Sunday 3 March 2008

After 5 years and 100,000km of complaining about the glaring shortcomings of contact-points ignition systems, I finally fitted an electronic distributor to Angus. That's the last time I'll be doing a timing adjustment, and I can put my dwell meter away forever!


The mounting-bolt flange didn't line up properly ont he new distributor, so I had to use a bit of flat steel as a bridge (the black bit to the left of the vacuum advance).
Nope, no points in there!

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