Hey Mel, thanks for checking in. I confess that I am intimidated by the talent that many of the guys in here have. I have a difficult time hooking up something like this Ride Tech system when others are fabbing their own parts and wiring harnesses, so I appreciate it when people find what I am doing of some interest.
Before I post any pics, let me explain what my plan is (as of this moment). I want to get this suspension put in place and new wheels for the summer cruise season and then put a new engine in it this Fall after the Lone Star Good Guys.. I should have my lift by then and can go to town detailing the underside of this rascal. I may also re-do the interior depending on time.
I finally got all the rear suspension bits in place - Strong Arms, upper link, panhard bar and Shockwaves. When I took it down off the jackstands I thought the new bumper stops would only allow it to go down so far, but it turns out it bottomed out on my jack, so it's back up on jackstands now while I work on the front.
I know this pic looks like something off the Titanic, but it's just dirt. In the above posts I described how the bag mounts didn't fit right. I talked to Ride Tech about it and they said everything would line up when the suspension had weight on it. I looked at it again and I just wasn't comfortable with it, so I took the left side bag mount off just to see what was not right. Well, the instructions say mount the stud through the hole in the upper spring mount. I did all this by feel before, and for some reason I decided to get a flashlight and see if there was some crud up there that was preventing it from seating right. I found something, but it wasn't what I expected.
Note in the first pic where the stud (with the nut on it) is in the bag mount, and look at the location of the hole in the spring pocket. Once I drilled a new hole in the center, everything lined up perfectly. No mention to check for this in the instructions or by the Tech Staff.
Here's a pic of the bag mount and the new bump stop. Nice pieces.
Old and new trailing arms:
Old and new panhard bar and upper arm:
And here's a picture of what 60 years of accumulated dirt on the front upper arms looks like:
Cleaning all that crap off revealed the car still has the original ball joints in it, and they are in amazing shape considering.