| C4 Corvette Chassis |
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| 1957 Corvette RestoMod Project - Page 5 Corvette C4 Front-End Disassembly The first part of my plan is to disassemble the 1996 Corvette Grand Sport front end assembly. I did this earlier in order to get the front cradle to Newman Car Creations. Newman would then re-engineer my stock frame to accept the cradle. While Newman was doing his magic, I needed to remove and upgrade all the suspension components. This involves the upper and lower control arms and steering knuckles. All the suspension bushings and ball joints needed to be replaced. The control arm bushings were in bad shape after more than a decade on the road, and the ball joints were loose. If you are going to upgrade the suspension and steering components to your project, don't use the old bushings! |
| Without having a dolly of any type to hold the front-end, I improvised. Here the front end is supported by two jack stands under the cradle. I kept the engine hoist and chains attached to it for stability - I didn't want the whole assembly to wobble and fall on my foot! If you don't own jack stands, or especially an engine hoist, you would be wise to invest in them. The engine hoist can be used for several heavy operations, including hoisting your engine. Commonly called a "cherry picker" the hoist arm is adjustable and it all folds up for out-of-the-way storage. Just like you, I have a lot of junk in my garage! |
| Once the assembly was secured, I removed the brake line at the caliper. Make sure you have an old bucket or other receptacle to catch the caustic brake fluid that will run out of the line and the caliper. Brake fluid will damage paint and other parts if it gets on them, so be careful how you handle this stuff. The wheel speed sensor came off next - make sure you don't damage the end-plug, you'll need it in good shape later. Front sub-frame connecting brackets were removed. These brackets came off the back of the cradle and bolted to the frame for rigid support. I did not discard these brackets yet because I'm not sure if I need them. Take off the sway bar and brackets from the front of this assembly and hold on to all of them. I will need these later on in the build. Next, I removed the tie-rod ends from the steering knuckle. The cotter pin and nut were removed, then I used a tie-rod puller tool that separated the end from the knuckle. Sometimes a big set of pliers might work here, but be very careful not to damage the cast aluminum knuckle. Aluminum is a much softer metal than steel and plier jaws have serration that can leave unwanted marks. This is as far as you can go before dealing with the front spring. This transverse mounted spring is made of composite material and when installed contains tremendous energy. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REMOVE THE LOWER CONTROL ARM OR BALL JOINT FROM THE STEERING KNUCKLE RIGHT NOW. If you try this, the spring will snap down on you so hard your children will be born dizzy. Follow my story and see the safest way, without the proper tool, to lessen the spring's tension. |
| Pictured here is the upper shock absorber mount and nut. The crescent wrench is holding the stud of the shock while an open-end wrench loosens the nut. Without ever having done this before, this part was pretty scary. The shock is attached at the bottom to the lower control arm. That lower control arm is attached to the end of the transverse spring. I could see that removing the lower two bolts from the shock would make the spring rapidly lose tension. This would thrust the lower control arm downward in a violent way - and possibly injure anything under it, including my hand. So the only safe way to reduce spring energy is to remove the upper shock nut - SLOWLY. |
| When the upper shock nut was removed, the spring violently snapped down about 2-3 inches. The result was much less tension in the spring, and the lower control arm, knuckle, and upper control arm moved downward too. As you can see pictured right, the upper control arm came down enough to pinch the shock absorber. DO NOT attempt to remove the shock from the lower control arm at this point. There is still plenty of tension in the spring, and injury to your hands could result. Read on to see how I did it... |
| The proper way to reduce tension in the transverse spring is to use a specialty tool. Made by Kent-Moore, the J-33432-A tool is designed to attach to the spring and relieve all spring tension. Once that is done, you can disassemble the control arms, shocks and steering knuckles. But, the specialty tool has a specialty price tag - over $700 new! So without the tool, I took the chance that my slow, step-by-step process would accomplish the job. Speaking of tools, you will need a good set of metric sockets and wrenches. The C4 Corvette uses all metric fasteners. Don't ask me why the icon of American sports cars uses metric only because I really don't know. Probably has something to do with flexibility of sizes. I only had SAE type tools, so a quick trip to Sears Craftsman and a couple hundred bucks later, and I had what I needed for this disassembly. |
| The next step was to remove the upper control arm from the steering knuckle. BE CAREFUL, THERE IS STILL SOME TENSION IN THE TRANSVERSE SPRING. The upper control arm and ball joint are connected to the steering knuckle(right). The ball joint stud protrudes down through the knuckle and is attached with a nut, washer and cotter pin. I removed the cotter pin and nut, then used a ball joint puller tool to separate the ball joint from the knuckle. The reason I know the spring still has some tension in it is because when the upper ball joint was separated, another violent jerk downward of about 2 inches happened. To be safe, I had put another jack stand under the lower control arm - just in case. As you can see from the lower right picture, the jack stand saved my foot and leg some trauma. The entire assembly tried to lurch and fall off the two red-colored jack stands, but my cherry picker and chain prevented that catastrophe as well. Word to the wise - never rush a project like this, especially if you don't know exactly what will happen. You can see the spring attached to the lower control arm in this picture. Now bending downward, and nearly all of this side's energy relieved, it pushes the lower control arm down. |
| After doing the same procedure on the other side of the front end, I then removed the rack and pinion unit. This is the steering box, or gear, that practically all modern cars use. The 1957 steering gear is indeed a box, or casing, that contains a ball worm gearing mechanism that is much less responsive than rack and pinion. Chapter 3 of my book has much more detail of how to perform the entire disassembly of the C4 front end, so look for the available chapters for purchase by clicking HERE. In the coming months, more chapters will be available - after all I'm only one guy and this is a BIG job! |
1957 Corvette RestoMod