The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher once said  “Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” I first heard of his words in my early teens and these words did not have the same meaning for me then as they do today. As I embarked on the long process of disassembling all of the front suspension pieces I found the job daunting and exhausting. I avoided digging my hands into it, it just made me tired looking at it, and by doing so, I created this mental barrier that I could not escape. Thus, by doing the difficult things while they were easy I was able to break away from my self-imposed mental barrier. Followed by doing the great things while they were small I was able to embark on my thousand mile journey with a single step.

Once upon a time, my shop was littered with dirty, greasy, and rusty suspension pieces all over the floor.

I have to use the oxy-acetylene torch to loosen up rusty nuts and bolts.

As I continue to restore my cars I try not to delegate and for me the reasons are simple. I like to see first hand what is going on to ensure a satisfactory completion of a given task. I have seen more than my fair share of poorly done restorations and while the car looks good and presentable it will not take long to realize the challenging part of sorting out work that should have been done back when the car was in pieces. All my cars, now twenty of them will be done as nut and bolt restorations because I only have one time to do it right once and thus is how the reassembly process will continue.

The re-assembly.

Both all upper and lower A-arms were restored with new bushings and seals for all 750 series cars as these were beyond

All ball joints were taken apart for inspection and replacements as needed.

All of the original Lobo bolts and nuts were Black-Oxide like new.

Although I have now completed enough suspension work for ten cars I am only assembling five of them at this time and looks like I will have a few sets for sale to anyone wishing to bypass this process.  Although the assembly line like the process is costly and time-consuming I find the process expedient and more effective in the long term as I can focus more effectively and expediently. There is a learning curve on all these tasks and I prefer to get it out of the way before I forget how I did it. Besides, I need to clear all my shop of parts laying all over the place. This will do for now as I am getting ready for re-attaching the completed suspensions back to the cars. Additional photo documentation of the complete process can be viewed HERE

 

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