Newbie goes for the Front end

[majicwrench]

Jack up A arm to compress spring. Now get some bailing wire or a bunch of zip strips-wire ties to hold spring compressed a bit. Now let jack down. Spring will be somewhat compressed and come right out.

[RRoller123]

There's a tremendous amount of energy stored in a compressed auto spring. Can be a very dangerous item. Don't screw around with it, get a spring compressor, imho. Especially if you are a "newbie" (like me).

[azruss]

I agree with Roller. I have done this operation several time including twice in the last 6 months. I have spent alot of time around machinery and know what i am doing. As stated, there is a lot of force in that coiled up spring. This is a dangerous spot for a newbie. Be safe and get a spring compressor. your fingers will thank you.

[ClarkTheShark]

Yea I just got through with a front end job on mine. Decided to break out the old engineering text books afterwards. Potential energy in a spring u=.5kx^2

Assuming the spring is compressed 6 inches and the spring rate is about 230 lbs/inch

That works out to about 350 ft-lbs of energy. Equivalent to the muzzle energy of a 9mm pistol point blank.

Yes, don't play with springs.

[Kta124]

Just got it done this afternoon without a compressor and before seeing all your warnings and re-warnings… This morning, before I went to rent the compressor I wanted to finish to take apart the passenger side of my front end. To be sure to get to point where I will only have both springs left on the car.
Looking at 4uall last pictures before I started, I though "it should be feasible, why not on mine…" Then I noticed that I was able to spin the spring on itself as I was pumping with my feet on the lower A-arm. Imagine the scene, butt on the floor, feet on the A arm, hands on the spring… Not sure Fiat engineers designed to be done like that! Well, on the go I interpreted that as "there is not much compression left into it…" Then I decided to try to remove it like that messing up a little more with it. It finally came out on the passenger side, then I got the driver side same way. I did not wanted to try a crow bar or any tools, too risky in my opinion but I am glad that last chance thing worked well !
I will go and rent a compressor when I will put them back though, I don't want to push to hard on it and have the car fall from the stands or pinch my finger or anything as I push…

@ClarkTheShark: Thanks for sharing that formula, I will go to bed less stupid tonight, I really like to put science on top of things, but I am too lazy to look for it!

Now it's time for getting most of that refurbished !!

I am lazy and I got to ask, is there any smart trick to sand these springs? I was thinking wire wheel but not sure it's the smartest...

[majicwrench]

Glad you got it apart. And I wasn't talking about compressing a spring 6", I was talking about an inch to make taking it out a bit more straightforward. I do this all the time. For decades. Still have all my fingers. Ya gotta have simple quick effective ways to work on cars or it takes forever.
Keith

[Kta124]

Hi There!

While I was working on the refurbishing of the parts I am going to reuse, I noticed some where painted at some location, like the hubs having a 2 square inches of orange paint, the springs a long line of white and a few spots of green. Do you know if that was made on Fiat's fabrication lines for some positioning or parts identifications? I was just wondering if there was some history behind that or if it was one of the PO who made his personal color coding...



Also I noticed the center sway bar brackets are actually riveted together, no harm drilling them apart, but a pain to put back together I imagine…

[Kta124]

Took a pic yesterday, here is the orange spot I found on 2 of the 3 hubs I have (2 from the car + one replacement for that striped stud).

I am curious of why is that although there no need to know why...
Also I am moving slowly but surely on the refurbishing of my parts,and I am almost done with repainting everything. Therefore I wanted a more rewarding DIY moment, so I removed the old A-arms, and replaced them with the new ones. I found something looking like washer/shims down there. One side had a lot of them, I removed half so the alignment shop may have something to work with.

I wanted to put back the springs, but I borrowed the wrong type spring compressor . Hopefully I will be able to find the good one and do that this afternoon.
By the way, anyone who know a good alignment shop in the south San Francisco Bay area?

[azruss]

the paint dot on the springs are factory. I'm sure the purpose is to identify years or weights of springs. I have see some markings on wheel hub but not on all. The shims you removed are for camber and castor adjust. I would put them all back in the same spot. Usually those are never messed with until you do an entire front rebuild and that was a factory setting.

[Kta124]

Thanks Azruss, I love to know more about the history of these little cars! And on top of that I am sure my springs are still originals also!

[Kta124]

Hi all,
I was about to paint the last part I need to put everything back together this week end if possible. I noticed that heat protection (to protect the Tie rod/centerlink Ball joints rubbers on top of the the idler) looks like bent in the left of the picture. I just wondered if that is the original shape or if it got bent at some point… Should I put it back straight if I can before I paint it, or is that odd curve normal?

[fiatmike124]

Here is mine. The curve is not there.

[Kta124]

OK thanks a lot! I will have to bend it back then...

[Kta124]

Hi There!

I am really happy about the progress I made yesterday afternoon! A friend of mine came to give me a hand, we got all the steering, the sway bar, the brakes, the hubs reinstalled and even got a chance to go for a short ride before the sunset, and a well deserved beer! What a pleasure…

Got that heat protection straightened up and mounted back:


All together, with a new used hub and 4 new studs:


However, without the proper tools I was unable to install back the rubber for my tie rods/centerlink: out of 6 I harmed 2 of them… I used a opened crescent wrench and hammered it gently to be able to push 2 sides of the ring at the same time and I guess the edge of the wrench pinched the rubber. Next time I will have to find a big socket or something else to make it smoother. I could even sadly watch the grease squeez out as I tightened everything!

(sorry for the blurry pic...)

If I have to make a few conclusion as a newbie:

- Buy/use the right tools, do not be lazy to do that extra trip to the hardware store
- O'Reilly is good for the specialty tools you will never use again,
- The grinding, sanding, painting, not so funniest part of it, is actually the longest one,
- I could count on luck as I did not face any big issues, but got a few times where you wonder if you are going to screw things up,
- Beware not to make your car fall of the jack stands (almost happened…)
- People on this forum are really helpful (thanks all),
- Most of the questions you ask yourself are also answered somewhere on the forum,
- The final result is rewarding! It's worth it…
- Make your budget and plan on spending 25% more,
- You can do it, just think twice before you do anything,
- I need more muscles, my 145Lbs did not helped me much…

Thanks for reading my post, and I hope I will come back posting on the forum soon with upcoming projects!

[Kta124]

I sadly have to reopen this post…

I went under my car today for a transmission oil change thinking the challenge of the day was that PO rounded former 17 refill plug:

After putting the car on ramps, I crawled under it from the front and my eyes felt on that:

Several cracks on my crossmember. I am sure they were not there as I cleaned the area when I changed the A-arms…
The bigger one is above the mounting bolt, then there are 3 smaller ones along the bolt supports. Here is another pic from under it:

Two of the smaller cracks around the mounting bolt actually bent the steel of the crossmember. All of this is on the passenger side. I also noticed that one on the drive side:


Question 1 : Is that something common that happened before? I am curious what could have made that…
Question 2 : I am still a newbie, but if I can find someone who can weld over the cracks, is that a sufficient fix?

Also I had it aligned in a shop around the corner sometime in April, and I just took the car to go to work once every other week max, I did like maybe 200 miles of gentle cursing since I did that front end job on it. Is there any possibility that the guys at the alignment shop tighten all that too much and it cracked at the first bump?