Finally! We get to put something back together instead of taking it apart! After painting the control arms and associated other pieces with Zero-Rust chassis black, my dad came over and helped me get the new bushings pressed into the front control arms. We set out to use his shop press to do the job, but we couldn’t get the a-arms to fit the press correctly, so we ended up just hammering them in. We used one of the dies from the press to drive the bushing sleeve in from the top, and a piece of heavy gauge tubing to support the bottom, allowing the bushing sleeve to push through and not be damaged by hammer blows or hitting the anvil / vice. Worked just fine!
Later, Steve came over and we put the A-arms and new 2 inch dropped spindles on the frame. Woo-hoo! Progress! The spindles are not on for good yet, we need to get a spring compressor to install the springs. These are the stock springs from the Impala, so the 2 inch dropped spindles may not bring the car down low enough… unless the springs are sagged out enough to do the trick. We may end up cutting a coil off each one. Anyway, for now we just have a couple of 2×4’s cut short to help hold the thing up.
We’ve still got to sand blast and paint the original steering arms and other misc pars, and paint up the rest of the new front end kit before we can finish installation. Dig those sweet 70’s Turbine wheels!