My rolling frame-swap started last fall with a full front and rear suspension refurbishment. I had not had to do much with the suspension in my 20 years of ownership except for replacing the sway bar front bushings when I replaced my radiator many years back. All of my bushings were in good shape. The previous owner of my car had just been through a full brake rebuild before I bought the car so aside from adding stainless brake hoses and maybe a set of front pads, I had not had to do much with the brakes either. I'm embarrassed to say I probably only flushed the brakes twice in 20 years. So, it was time to do a full rebuild again.
Once I had the brakes and suspension removed, I sent the calipers, rear hubs, horn brackets, and all other brackets and hardware including suspension pivot bolts and washers to DMCMW for plating. They have a great partner nearby who cleans the parts and yellow-zinc plates everything. So you send a bunch of dirty crap and a couple weeks later you end up with this:
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For the rear trailing arms, I delivered them to a machine shop who put them in the oven and hot tank cleaned them to get the old epoxy off. I then treated them with POR15 degreaser, Metal Prep, and then two coats of Grey POR15. I used a long small brush on a stick to paint the inside of the arms. Same machine shop cleaned the rear carriers which are bare aluminum (no epoxy). I had them press out the old rear bearings and install a set of new SKF bearings and then press in the outer axle. I painted the carriers with POR15 as well so they would match the arms.
PXL_20211015_002030595.jpg[ Trailing arms after machine shop cleaning and POR 15 degreaser and metal prep. Rear lower links restored and ready to go! ]
PXL_20211016_191154397 (2).jpg[ Trailing arms after painting with POR 15 ]
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[ Rear hubs with new bearings, painted with POR 15, and new outer axle nuts ready for installation ]
The lower links were refurbished by painterdave72 who is another local Kansas City owner. He powder coated the arms and pressed in new OEM-style rubber bushings.