Pilot front A-arms  (2-9-00)

During the end of last season I noticed my front end was getting loose.

2 years ago when I was at Gary's in Missouri to attend his race during a practice 
lap I went over a hill just a little to fast and a little bit to much off camber and landed 
on the front left tire bending the steering column, knocked the air out of the front
left tire and bent the lower A-arm just enough to really make Pilot turn to the left real good.

Wile my Pilot is down for a rebuild and porting I decided its time to tear into the front
suspension and and repack the front spherical bearings with some fresh grease.

After taking the A-arms off I noticed I may have waited a year to long to repack
the spherical bearings as the grease was black dried out and nasty looking
after removing the seals and spherical bearings I found that there was a large
amount of sand in the grease. (not a good thing) 
Wile I was ordering my rebuildparts from Hill Side Honda I got a price 
on new seals $2.38 each 16 required ouch,

 So after careful consideration I decided to pass on the new seals for now 
and I would sort through all seals from my A-arms and the second set of 
A-arms I got from Robert pick out the best ones and use the old ones.
I am planning on making a new set of front A-arms from scratch and making
them about 2-3" longer than stock so I can soften those lawn dart front end
landings.

I can see now that I should have kept up with my once a year schedule of
cleaning and replacing the grease in the front and rear A-arms 2 years is 
just to long.
when I would repack them once a year I always found them to be clean
and the grease still looked fresh.

Taking the A-arms off and removing the seals is pretty straight forward 
but removing the spherical bearings is a different story you first need to 
remove the stop ring (looks and works just like a cir clip on a piston pin)
most of the time you cant get the stop rings out so I just take a brass 
punch and drive the spherical bearing out with the stop ring.
Kiowa said he found a box of snap rings at a local hardware store the 
do the same as the stop ring and are easy to remove with a snap ring
pliers. (I am looking into snap rings as a replacement)

After a fresh coat of paint

All the little pieces and parts needed for each A-arm

Take a look at inspecting and replacing the  lower
steering stem bushing wil you have the tie rods 
removed.





-o0o-