2) Steering/front end
2a) Re-furbed wishbones (I'll probably strip and powder coat some old ones).
2b) Poly front bushes - From?
2c) VX verticals
2d) New ball joints
For the Wishbones, I ended up with this:
1) VX-90576788/789 STEERING ARM, (STRIPPED & POWDER COATED)
2) VX-9156605 BUSH,DAMPER,REAR
3) PFF80-902 (VX-90576775) POWERFLEX POLY FRONT SUSPENSION BUSH
4) PFF80-902 POWERFLEX POLY FRONT SUSPENSION BUSH CENTRE TUBE
5) VX-90538056 X2 NUT,HEX.,M14,CONTROL ARM TO CROSSMEMBER
6) VX-90468501 SCREW,HEX.HD.,M14 X 1.5 X 77,CONTROL ARM TO CROSSMEMBER
7) VX-90468500 SCREW,HEX.HD.,M14 X 1.5 X 88,CONTROL ARM TO CROSSMEMBER
8 ) VX-90468928 BUMPER,STOP,FRONT SUSPENSION ARM (NLS) (REUSED)
9) VX-90542995 BALL JOINT,ASSY,FRONT SUSPENSION ARM (NLS) (REUSED)
10) VX-11100041 X3 SCREW,HEX.HD.,M8 X 25 FLANGE
11) VX-11094436 X3 NUT, M8 X 25 FLANGE
Comments1) I stripped down a used pair of genuine Vauxhall front wishbones and then got them powder coated. Removing the vertical bushes was straightforward, but I had to use a 10-Ton press to shift the horizontal bushes. When these finally let go they go with a bang.
Drilling off the rivets holding the ball joints was fairly easy - drill through first with a 4mm pilot drill, then repeat with an 8mm drill. Finally chizel off the now much weakened head, and clean out the holes. The genuine VX wishbones have flat topped rivets with a dimple in the middle which aides the centering of the drill. All the aftermarket wishbones I've got have dome topped rivets and these may be more of a challenge to remove.
3&4) Come as part of the Powerflex Poly Bush Kit
8 ) Is the bumper bush which stops the track rods hitting the wishbone on steering full lock. These are NLS from VX, but are available from OCP. They are pressed into the wishbone, but there isn't enough room to get in behind them to press them out again. However, if you're careful you can chisel/tease them out without too much damage and then re-use them. They contain plastic/rubber parts so have to be removed to powder coat the arms.
9) The ball-joints all appear servicable to start with and I managed to remove them without wrecking anything. So I wire brushed down the metal parts and gave them a quick coat of black paint. They appear to be NLS from VX and I didn't try to source aftermarket ones, but they may be available.
10) The VX bolts hadn't arrived when I took the rest of the photos, so I just used some generic bolts at the time. The correct bolts turned up this morning so I swapped them over before fitting the wishbones to the car. This is what they look like.
Reassembly is fairly straightforward, and once it's all together you end up with this :
The Poly bushes are a very snug fit into the metal brackets on the car's front sub-frame, and need some 'persuasion' to get them in (aka a hammer and a block of wood). Hopefully that's the front suspension complete.