The '79 Caprice had been telling me for a while that it needed a new ball joint via a loud pop anytime I turned the wheel too far in one direction, like when pulling in a parking spot. I felt we could wait. The '79 Caprice decided it needed new brake pads via the indicators squealing all the time. It was time to remedy both problems.
I acquired this car in the year 2000. It belonged to an elderly man that my parents had known for many years. He and his wife lived in Nashville and they also had a home next door to my parents in Florida. He used to tow a trailer to Florida with him in the winter, hence the trailer hitch. One year when I was young, while I was in Florida with my parents on vacation, he pulled out an old 1960s bicycle and gave it to me. I had it restored and still use it as my bicycle today. He was one of the first soldiers to raid Hitler's house in World War II. Before he died he showed me one of Hitler's personal photo albums, hand written in German. I had told his wife that I would like to have the car if she ever decided to sell it and when she did she gave me a call. I've had it ever since. I recently learned that she passed away. This is a picture of April and I the last time we went to visit her, which was the last time I saw her. She was in her 90s in this photo and when we showed up she was in a chair changing a light bulb.
Replacing ball joints is typically a job that will be difficult and problematic. Fortunately, this time the process was relatively straight forward, considering. The spindle is the piece that connects the upper and lower A-arms together. The first order of business is getting the top A-arm free from the top of the spindle. This involves using a pickle fork and unfortunately, this one required me hitting it with my left hand, which typically means my aim isn't as good and my right hand suffers a few good wacks from the hammer. Once it is broken free, then I used the same process to separate the bottom. It is vitally important to remember to put a jack under the lower control arm and leave the nuts on the ends of the ball joint studs while breaking the A-arms loose. This is because the spindle is what holds the upper and lower A-arms together and the spring is between them under tension, so if you don't have any support, when you break the A-arms loose the energy of the spring will be released, causing the A-arms to fly apart and will typically end up in broken bones.
I had to rent the pickle fork and this ball joint installer/remover tool from Auto Zone. The bottom ball joint is a press fit, so the old one must be pressed out and the new one must be pressed in.
The old ball joint wasn't as bad as some I've seen, but it was still damaged and needed replacing.
With the new lower ball joint installed, it was time to reinstall the spindle and reverse the process. Notice the brake caliper is tied up and out of the way. This prevents excessive stress on the hose from the weight of a hanging caliper and also keep the caliper out of the way.
New ball joints must be greased. One thing that took a very long time and was the very, very messy job of replacing the grease in my grease gun. I didn't know what kind of grease was in the grease gun so I got some new. The way you are supposed to put grease in the gun is to take the top and bottom off of the gun and install the cardboard tube on the left into the metal tube of the gun. Unfortunately, this is not how the grease gun was filled previously. Rather than a cardboard tube being inserted, grease was simply stuck down inside the tube. I don't have pictures of the cleaning process because of how immensely dirty this job was, but imagine each item of the gun in this picture so covered in grease that you couldn't even see them. After half a roll of paper towels and half a can of brake cleaner, I finally got it clean.
The spindle is back on and the new brake pads are installed on both sides. That pretty much wraps up the '79, which is currently my daily driver, so it was important to get this job finished the same day it was started. I have not been looking forward to doing this so I'm glad to have it behind me. The heat index today was 97 degrees, so finding a day when I could work outside without having the keep the children has been difficult.
A project I hope to tackle soon is putting a new transmission in the '57. A while back I had an issue with the first overdrive transmission I put in the '57. I had a guy that helped me rebuild the first one I installed after the 2nd gear synchros went bad, but when we didn't finish he said he would finish it while I wasn't there because he lived such a long distance away. We had attempted to take parts from different transmissions and put them together, but unfortunately the things he did didn't work correctly. I believe I can get it working, but it's going to take some modification and success is not a certainty. I found this unit for sale in Alabama for a really great price and drive down last week to pick it up. I haven't had the cover off to inspect it yet, but I'm hopeful it is in good condition. If it is, it won't take long to fill it with grease and install it.
