buddy of mine is replacing the majority of his suspension parts on his 1976 cutlass supreme. he is changing the springs, shocks, tie rods, and ball joints. wouldve changed upper and lower control arms but couldnt find any. anyways just curious if i was going to need any special tools to remove the ball joints and also how hard is it to take em off and to install them. also what ab out the tie rods? same question any special tools and whats the easiest way to take em off and install new ones. thanks fellas

 

Assuming everything on the car is original, the ball joints are connected to the control arms with rivets. You need to drill them out. It's not difficult....just make sure you don't damage the control arms when drilling. The new ball joints will come with 3 bolts (I think) to replace the rivets. The tie rods should just screw on and off. You may need to loosen the clamps to unscrew the tie rods. I had to do these things when I rebuilt the front suspension on my '78 Camaro Z28. It has the typical SLA (short, long arm) suspension and I'm pretty sure a '76 Cutlass has the same setup.

 

alright sounds good. i think hes gunna buy a wire brush attachment for a grinder so we can knock off all of the old surface rust. he wanted to know if there was maybe a certain paint we could spray on them to keep em from rusting again. any ideas?