Triumph/TR3A Projects:Disassembling front suspension / steering

Suspension can be easy to pull apart if you know how.

I didn't, but I sure ended up learning about the suspension after this one. I pulled apart alot more than I needed to, but that's because I needed to figure out where my suspension was siezing up. If you know what you are having a problem with, you probably won't need to tear apart quite as much.

Front suspension
with parts exploded
Steering with parts exploded
(this is for RHD so it's backwards for me!)
Jack up the car
and remove the wheels
Looking up into the left wheel well
we can see the tie rod and where I've started to disconnect the drop arm (steering #46) so I can eventually remove the linkage.
Remove the brake caliper
(showing right wheel well)
The right tie rod
connects to the steering linkage
After removing the tie rod
the steering linkage merely sits on the idler arm (which we've unbolted here)
These are all press .. and hard to remove,
so old car removal technique #1 is to heat up the outside so that it expands. This is enormously helpful and I consider it my number one tip for old car maintenance.
The idler arm is free
and can be removed.
At the top of the vertical link
(suspension #32) is another ball joint assembly. As you can see here, the rubber boot disintegrated along time ago. I've removed the nut and managed to free the vertical link on the top. I can now lift up the top control arm (suspension #9) and pull out the vertical link if needed, but I'll hold it here until I've taken care of the bottom.
Remove all the bolts..suspension #102,103)
which is time consuming. I've also removed the bracket/nut that holds in the washers at the inside of the wishbone.
Removing the wishbones is difficult.
First take off the trunnion (suspension #95) nuts. With the jack under the spring pan (suspension #132) you can start to compress the springs. With some play and muscle this will allow you to start to lift the wishbones off the spring pan. You need to lift the wishbones enough so that you can clear the studs towards the inside and then slide the wishbones off the trunnion and off the hub attached to the car body. This isn't easy, and although I've done it a number of times, I've never found a simple way to do it.
With the left wishbo..remove the trunnion.
The wheel hub has been removed from the vertical link (which is now hanging forward). Turns out I could have done my repair without taking off the wheel hub, but it's not hard to do and it makes it easier to work with the suspension, and it's not such a bad idea to repack the hub grease.
The trunnion and vertical link
and one of the wishbones removed. Also note the string hanging the caliper so that I don't have to worry about it anymore or disconnect the brake fluid hose.
I had to replace one.. silentbloc bushings
that hold the linkage to the drop and idler arms. This is a strange press fit that simply uses rubber to allow for the rotation between linkage and arm. Strange. Unfortunately they're a pain to get back in - I managed to get it mostly down with a vise.
But to finish the jo..ed up using a socket
that fit around the bolt and then cranked the press fit in.
Created with the tool album script from Marginal Hacks by David on Wed Jun 3 05:39:47 2015