63-67 upper A-arm control shaft stud

[Tim D.]

I am just finishing a complete restoration on my 64 convertible. Could someone please advise me on the proper installation of the front upper A-arm control stud for a 64? My book says the stud must be "pressed" into frame. What does this mean? How do I do it? The car is now totally "together" so how does one "press" the stud into the frame? Obviousy, I will replace the stud that is stripped. What did I do wrong?

I had a very scary, lucky or unlucky, depending on how you look at it event. I finally took my car around the block for it's first test drive at end of restoration. My passenger side A-arm must have lost the nut and when I went to brake hard to test my brakes. The A-arm nut came off and the A-arm swung around and hit my radiator shroud. This caused a very loud noise and then my fan began hitting the shroud due to a slight ding/bend that occured in the shroud. I have triple checked all of my suspension torques and cotter pins. However, after bouncing my new suspension, I remember having trouble getting the front upper A-arm control stud nuts to tighten to the 65-75 ft. pounds that my book calls for. They felt a little "funny" so I stopped torque at around 60 ft. lbs. I was thinking the alignment shop would torque them properly when I got my 4 wheel alignment. Also, I believe the one in question felt stripped.

Any thoughts would greatly be appreciated before I wrap my car around a tree.

Thanks,
Tim

[William C.]

Re: 63-67 upper A-arm control shaft stud

Pressed into the frame means just that, there is (should be) an interference fit between the frame and the shoulder on the bolt, just below the bolt head. Generally if the hole size is original, the bolt can be "pulled" into position. If indeed you could not tighten to torque, an investigation as to "WHY" was in order before driving. New bolts and nuts if the frame holes are not damaged should fix your problem. If the frame holes are oversize, more drastic work might be in order.

[Tracy C.]

Re: 63-67 upper A-arm control shaft stud

Tim,

Just to clarify..the stud that is pressed into the frame is the stud that the alignment shims saddle over. These studs must be installed/replaced prior to the installation of the upper control arms and they hold the upper control arm shaft to the frame.

The studs (bolts actually) I believe you are refering to with the torquing issue are the ones that go into the ends of the control arm shafts that prevent the bushing from coming out of the control arms. These are not pressed into the frame. They screw into the ends of the control arm shaft and are torqued with the car on ground with the full weight on the suspension.

If you've stripped a thread on the control arm shaft, then you will need to replace the shaft or you might be able to upsize the hole to the next size bolt. I've not heard of anyone doing this, but you might look into it. A helicoil is another option that would allow use of the same size bolts. I beleive either of the later two options could be accomplished without removing the parts from the car.

good luck,
tc

[Jim T.]

Re: 63-67 upper A-arm control shaft stud

The bolts that the shims go on are sererated below the head of the bolt and should fit with enough of a interference fit in the frame that they will not turn when installed.
When I move my right side upper control arm back in the wheel well for radiator shroud removal to permit radiator removal I knock the control arm bolts out and also reinstall them. Have reused them a few times in 40years and they still hold in place.

[Tim D.]

Re: 63-67 upper A-arm control shaft stud

Thanks guys. I really appreciate the responses. I have it all back together with a new bolt and nut and all is tight/torqued and well. Other than a small scratch or two on my shroud, which I was able to touch up, I was VERY lucky in many ways. Tim

[Tracy C.]

Re: 63-67 upper A-arm control shaft stud

Tim,

I'm curious as to what actually came apart. I can't see the loss of any single nut as causing the control arm to come loose and flop around as you described.

tc

[Tim D.]

Re: 63-67 upper A-arm control shaft stud

Tracy,

I am finishing my first restoration. I have never done this before and I did all of the work myself refering to the AIM, manuals, videos etc. I test drove the car slowly around the block twice a couple of weeks ago and it seemed to go pretty well. Since I have never done this type of work before, I was in fact, more than a little concerned that everything was done properly and safely with regards to the front and rear suspension, brakes, steering etc.

A friend of mine came to my house last Saturday to haul my car to his body shop to touch up a paint spot that had nothing to do with this fiasco. (Currently, my car is at the paint shop so I can't go out to my garage to look at it right now for reference). I asked him if he would test drive it around the block before we loaded it onto his trailer, to get his take on braking, steering and general feel for what kind of "bugs" we needed to work through to get everything dialed in correctly. (I have not had the front and rear alignment done yet, so I didn't want to drive it too far).

I will try to clarify what actually happened. First of all, it was not the bolts that go into the ends of the control arm shafts that hold the bushings. It was one of the nuts/bolts that hold the upper A-arm to the frame. Here is what I "think" happened. When I was assembling the suspension on the frame, before the body mount, I snugged everything up. After the body drop, when I had most of the components installed to get near the correct curb weight etc., I triple checked all suspension, steering etc., torques after bouncing the car several times. Here is where I made a very dumb, inexperienced, dangerous mistake. When I torqued the nuts in question, (a few years ago so my memory is a little foggy), I made a note on my "idiot list" that I only torqued them to 60 ft. lbs vs. 65-75 ft. lbs. that is called for in my spec book. I stopped at 60 because one of them seemed to strip and I got scared of stripping them all. I made a note of this, and decided the alignment shop would take care/correct this when they did the alignment and added/subtracted the shims. Well.......I now realize that I made a HUGE, dangerous, stupid, inexperienced mistake by not correcting the problem immediately.

Tracy, the best I can figure is, perhaps ????, I left the nut off of the stripped bolt, thinking, "I will recheck everything before I test drive it and get it put to bed". I put a piece of lime green body tape on the nut end of the stripped bolt to serve as a reminder to correct this important safety issue. That was a couple of years ago. I am not a fast restorer, (time, $, etc). I am speculating that over time the green piece of "reminder tape" fell off and out of sight, out of mind ......??? Fast forward, when my friend was test driving it around the block in my subdivison, he said the brakes felt a little funky, so he hit them hard and when he did, the A-arm came loose. He popped the hood and saw that the nut was gone off of the one stud and the A-arm had swung sideways and hit the shroud. We retraced his driving path and never found the nut. We got the car back into my garage and he installed one of my original nuts that I still had in my basement. Since I didn't actually stick my nose down there and look at it (I was kind of in shock) I can't really say exactly what all came loose to cause this. I THINK, with one nut off, when he hit the brakes hard, the bolt may have slipped back out of the frame which allowed the A-arm assembly to pivot. However, I would think with the other bolt and nut in there, it wouldn't allow it to pivot???. Tracy, I'm not really sure.....all I know at this point, is that he inspected everything yesterday at his shop and he has it all back together with new bolts, nuts etc and everything torqued down as it should. I will go to his shop as soon as I get a chance and ask him to show/explain exactly what he found.

I hope this helps to make a little sense of it all. This was one of my greatest fears and by George, if I didn't let it happen. I feel extremely lucky that it didn't happen at a higher speed with disasterous results. I will say, I am embarrassed, angry etc. at my STUPIDITY. Oh well, live and learn. Hopefully, others will read this and not make the same mistake of ..."well, that didn't go or feel right, but I will come back to it and fix it later".

Thanks for your interest, help and concern.

Tim (50796)