Front Axle, Trailing Arm, Lower bolt for new shocks

[Adventurewagen]

Problem: My new front Koni's are too wide for the bottom front bolt attached to the trailing arm. I've determined this is a problem others have run into as well. I have a 71 and the arms should not be from a 68-69 but my bolt IS too short.

Question: What do I do Can that stud be pulled and replaced with a longer one or do I need to replace the entire arm? or... can I maybe find a thin lock nut and put that on in place of the original lock washer, washer and nut?

[spiffy]

Problem: My new front Koni's are too wide for the bottom front bolt attached to the trailing arm. I've determined this is a problem others have run into as well. I have a 71 and the arms should not be from a 68-69 but my bolt IS too short.

Question: What do I do Can that stud be pulled and replaced with a longer one or do I need to replace the entire arm? or... can I maybe find a thin lock nut and put that on in place of the original lock washer, washer and nut?

Give a call to Tacoma Screw and see what they have...or does not fit in the shock mount?

[Adventurewagen]

What I've found out is this. 68-69 model year buses had a 32mm stud and 70-79 had a 42mm stud. My 71 must for some reason have different trailing arms from an earlier bay.

The stud also doesn't screw into the arm, but instead it has a pin holding it in on the bottom of the arm which I may be able to pull and then get the stud out and a new longer replacement in, but since there is no part number for it I'd have to find something that would work from the hardware store.

Since I'm not too excited about that I may just wait and get the 175 dollar kit from Bus Boys with new ball joints since I believe mine are also very much shot. But... This is mo money mo problems, so I may have to sit on my shocks for a while before I can afford this painful upgrade :(

[Amskeptic]

I may just wait and get the 175 dollar kit from Bus Boys with new ball joints since I believe mine are also very much shot. But... This is mo money mo problems, so I may have to sit on my shocks for a while before I can afford this painful upgrade :(

$175.00 is less than the Konis that won't fit.
But the pain of installation is priceless. . . :D
Colin

[DurocShark]

I may just wait and get the 175 dollar kit from Bus Boys with new ball joints since I believe mine are also very much shot. But... This is mo money mo problems, so I may have to sit on my shocks for a while before I can afford this painful upgrade :(

$175.00 is less than the Konis that won't fit.
But the pain of installation is priceless. . . :D
Colin

I think it would be worth it myself. Because then you get lots 'o goodies in one fell swoop!

Which reminds me that my CV boots died on the last CA trip. :(

[Adventurewagen]

Small update (ok long winded update) and conclusion to my saga. Here is the picture of what I was dealing with:


You can see on the left side of the shock, the mounting bolt appears to get thicker and my Koni's dont fit. I originally tried to clean it off and remove it, but I was sure it was part of the stud and that the stud had a larger base machined into the torsion arm. But... after getting measurements from Richard on the stud length and a couple days break from looking at it I went and measured.

68-69 studs are 32mm long and 70-79 studs are 42mm. Sure enough mine were 42 if I included that thicker base part, but the base wasn't 10mm thick which made my stud more like 36mm long? So I got out a razor blade and started scraping and cutting away at that piece on the edges and I used a metal brush as well. Sure enough it turned out to look like it was a bushing!!! Now I just had to get it off.

I decided to go all in with it and threw on some liquid wrench, hammered on it and got out the pipe wrench. Nothing! I wrenched some more and just managed to tear it up a bit but nothing.

So now I had a chewed up inside portion on my stud. :( so I got out the good ol grinder and figured I'd just grind the son of a bitch down. I carefully ground away at the piece not hitting the main stud part and sure enough I ended up getting to a point where I ground through the piece!!! It was a bushing!!! A little plier action and I tore the rusted on bushing off!!! Cleaned up my 42mm long stud, slapped on some anti-sieze and mounted my left Koni. :)

The same bushing was on the front right and with a little more help from a bigger pipe wrench and more liquid wrench, that one broke free and i was able to slide it off.

So chrisis overted. All I can say is without those measurements frim Ratwell I never would have tried to get them off. They were so rusted into place that until I used a razor blad on them you couldn't tell they were a seperate piece from the stud itself.