1965 Clark Cortez

(Second time of writing this... )

Wait, what's this?! A second update in a week!

Last night I headed off to the Cortez by my lonesome as L wasn't feeling too well. We'd been planning to go all week but as usual, life happened and we'd not made it there.

The mission: Remove one of the front shocks to measure up for replacement.

As the Cortez wasn't drive-able... Insert ironic shocked face, I had to work in the open fronted shed where we keep the Cortez, this meant no power and no airlines, oh the horror! This time of year here in Virginia is great! The mornings are cool and comfortable, the afternoons and evenings warm (80f / 26c) with low humidity and best of all... NO BUGS! (Those little Bar-stewards are coming though and the LOVE ME!) so working outside was really nice!

With the Cortez jacked up and safely supported by TWO axle stands I set about the task at hand.

Wheel off, check!
Douse "the shizzle" out of every nut and bolt that would be attacked, check
(Side note: I've been doing this for a while every time I've had access)

Looking at the top nut on the shock I wasn't feeling too confident, it looked super rusty, but armed with my 9/16" (I think) cranked angle ring spanner I gave it a cheeky turn, the shock spun.
"Ok, I wonder if I just grip the body of the shock I can undo it?"
(Inner monologue: "Stupid idea, but try it!")

I gripped the body tightly (ooo-er!) and braced myself for either a struggle or a difficult job aaaaannnnnnnnddddddd the nut just came undone, easy-peasy! Er... What?!

Moving onto the bottom bolt/nut. Now armed with a 3/4" ring spanner and an adjustable (I know, I'm sorry) opened all the way to 1" I got them in position, braced myself, started applying a little pressure (Inner monologue: "Wait, is that coming undone already?"). It came undone super easy, like alarmingly easy, concerningly easy!

So, yea! Shock out!



And it was dead, like proper dead! I compressed it totally by hand and then fully extended it, it wasn't doing a thing!

Anyway, next job. The bump stops. This ancient rubber bump stop looked in a right state! With the shock doing sweet FA it's not surprising really, especially as it looked as old as Noah's ark. I expected this to be easy compared to the shocks (prior to actually removing the shocks) but this proved to be a right mission! By the time I'd got it out it was in two pieces.



Last job, drop link. The upper-bushes, I'd previously noticed looked in a bit of a state so they were quickly undone and removed. Upon closer inspection the lower bush looked even worse! And a quick wobble of the drop link highlighted a lot of squeaking and movement.

Now, rearmed with my 3/4" ring spanner and adjustable (...sorry) I once again expected a fight, however just like the shock the nut came loose super easy and just like that the drop link was out.



By this time I was rather dirty and super sweaty and it was ready for home!

Shocks, bump stops and drop link bushes have been ordered this morning and should be here by the weekend.
We're also expecting new belts and speedometer cable to arrive soon!

More soon!

Andy & L

There speaks someone who has never walked a couple of miles up a 1.1 road to a breakdown carrying their tools ! or swung around 80ft in the air in a riding belt in the wind and rain with all your tools attached to you with lanyards.
Every tool has it's place and used correctly a good shifter (Bahco) has it's place in any toolbox

Not quite. I used to work offshore and yep, a 12" Bahco lived in one of my leg pockets. And yep, it got me out of the shıt more than once. But that's a very different environment to working in a barn! I've still got a 12" Bahco in my toolbox here, but it's used for changing gas bottles as I can't justify the outlay for the right sized spanner for that particular twice a year job!

I know, I know... I didn't have a spanner large enough and honestly I couldn't be arsed walking upto the garage to see if there was one in there. If the nut and bolt had put up more of a fight I probably would have gone and looked for something more suitable.



Yea, I kinda thought that after I'd posted. We'll have to see how it goes! I've been giving both sides a good blast of PB Blaster when I've had access so hopefully that's done it's job! I know the ARB nuts on the drop link will come free so it's just the top and bottom nut on the shock and the nut on the bottom of the drop link... If it does put up a fight I have plenty of cutting discs!
Thank you!

I suspect they are but so far I've not been able to find exactly what they're from - Though being completely honest I've not done too much digging.

Killing it on updates this month!

Yesterday me and L had a hugely successful day working on the Cortez.

Jobs finished:

New shocks installed, check!
New bumpstops installed, check!
New bushings in the droplinks installed, check!

So, how did we get on?

We'll let's start here, easy job first.



Bumpstops,absolutely dead - I actually ended up tearing this one in two while undoing it. I was expecting the other side to be just as difficult but I set L loose on it and it was out in less than a minute!

Enter.



And installed.




Next job was removing, cleaning and rebuilding the drop links, again, dead bushings.



Enter new bushings.



We actually found that we needed to cut off about 5mm from the flat end of the upper bushings as they were too thick. It appears the best was to cut polyurethane is a hacksaw!





And here's L expertly installing them.



Next job was the shocks, having previously removed everything from the passenger-side all that was left was to remove the drivers side. Again, everything came apart super easy and this shock was as dead as the other side - No wonder the ride has been so bad!

Working on the passenger side first we noticed that the bushing on the bottom of the stock was super tight against the bolt, so a G-clamp, a socket and plenty of lube was used to bring them together, and everything was bolted up in no time, happy days!

Here's where things went briefly south! L was trying to release the shock from the retaining strap, she compressed the shock fine, lifted the strap up and then her finger slipped as the shock tried to extend trapping the tip of her finger between the upper and lower of the shock, as soon as she started shouting we were both pushing the shock back down and she got away with a slightly squished fingertip but relatively unharmed... The good news is that she didn't damage the shock either!


(We went with a slightly longer, heavy duty shock)

With the last shock installed and everything checked for tightness we threw the wheels back on and took the Cortez off the stands. It now sits level (Boo, no rake) and is a good 3" higher at the front - I've never been so happy in my life to see a vehicle higher after I've worked on the suspension!

The pictures aren't perfectly inline but here's a before and after.

Before


And after.



I did a quick suspension travel test by bouncing on the front bumper and there were no bad noises to report, we couldn't go on a test drive as the engine currently looks like this...



As we're STILL waiting on belts to be delivered!


We've also put out another video, the final one of our fuel tank saga! If you're interested please go check it out!



Thanks!

Andy & L

Thanks for the offer on the car-buh-ray-turr (did I get that right?) Phil but if we have any more issues with our current one, I will be taking great pleasure in tearing it off and replacing it with a new shiny one. Maybe the addition of some dead spiders would help things on ours?

I'm going to assume commercial spiders are bigger?.. In that case I'll keep the crappy running carb!

Good point, PhilA.

Stick a Innovate Air/ Fuel ratio meter on it ,so you know...