After yesterday's alignment, I set the car up on the wheel blocks and with the suspension loaded I torqued the lower control arm bolts to around 95 ft.lbs. That's a little more than the stock torque recommendation but since the K-member is slotted and now has a combination of poly bushings and heim joints, I wanted to make sure that nothing moves around. I also marked the bolt heads on the lower control arms just in case something does slip. This will allow me to bring it back into spec very easily without a trip back to the alignment shop.
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Out back, I had one cosmetic swap that I forgot to mention in my original list. The Moser 12 bolt aluminum cover came with black oxide button head bolts that had rusted. I had purchased replacements last year at Fall Carlisle, but came up 1/4" short on my guess at their length. I think it was Zapper who mentioned that Fastenal carries these in stainless and sure enough, I was able to find exactly what I needed on the shelf. I removed the bolts a couple at a time and replaced them with the stainless bolts so as not to break the seal on the differential cover. Once they were all replaced, I cross torqued them down in 3 steps to a final torque of 18 ft.lbs. The nuts on the bearing cap support screws are also a bit rusted, but I will deal with them later.
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Winding up for the night, and having completed this round of mods, I snapped a pic of the entire undercarriage. It's been a great winter/spring project in the garage and everything went well, but now it is time to drive her!
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