[Jacques Reed]

Hello Harle,

I was not present when the mechanic removed the shock absorber arms so I do not know what puller he used. He told me. however, that he made up one to do the job. He normally just restores A model Ford shock absorbers.

Heat: He used an oxy-acetylene torch to heat it at the arm around the rotor shaft. A simple propane torch would not be able to heat the arm rapidly enough to expand the hole to make removal easier. From my own experience removing frozen nuts, the speed at which you heat a frozen nut is the most important thing. The idea is to heat the nut rapidly before the heat transfers to the bolt so the nut expands more than the bolt to make the nut removal easier. This principle would also apply to removing the arm from the splined rotor shaft.

I was not there, but I would think it would need to be heated dull red at least to get the arm to expand far enough to pull it off the splines.

Safety: Yes, care must be taken whenever heat is used around any oil. I would assume they were drained and the heat only directed at the arm and the flame kept off the cover. If I did it I would place some insulating material between the cover and the arm also. Perhaps immersing just the cover into a tub of water leaving the arm above the water would be a good safety procedure while heating it.

And to answer your question Andrew they are similar in design but substantially different. Rotor arm shaft and method of attaching the arms are different and I haven't got an A Model shock to compare but I believe they are smaller than the Ford CMP truck ones.

Cheers,