Upper contol arm bushings R&R

[1987cp]

He threaded a 16mm nut out of the "fine" drawer onto the shaft, and declared that the threads needed further cleaning (which I don't think they do ...). 16mm sounds logical since most of the chassis stuff is in metric, but I expect you're more knowledgable than the average hardware-store goon, and if you say it's 5/8 NF, it's probably 5/8 NF. No locknuts in the metric size, though I suppose there's an off chance they have it in SAE.

[85crownHPP]

did the guy even try a standard nut??? i think he may BE a nut... this is why you have to handle your own nut business.

[1987cp]

Very true. If I'd actually cared on that particular day, I'd have had a peek myself. Like the day I took a screw into another Ace and told the owner I needed another like it ... he snatched it, muttered something to the effect of "Move aside, I know what I'm doing!", put something unseen in a bag and handed it to me. And what do you know? He'd bagged me up a nut, not a screw.

[gadget73]

Going part way on then jamming is a sign of the wrong thread. 16mm will start on a 5/8 shaft, but the pitch is wrong. These cars are a nonsensical mixture of standard and metric, so sometimes you just have to dig through the bins to find the right hardware.

[1987cp]

Isn't that the truth, especially the bolts in the accessory drive that I finally realized had 15mm heads, not 5/8, when basically the rest of the engine is all SAE.

Even the metric junk is sometimes confusing, as McMaster-Carr seemed to list three different thread pitches in 16mm. On a previous occasion, it took a couple of trips back and forth to here and there to get the right nuts for my BBK headers on the 351.

I did notice on the nut I pulled back off to take to the store with me tomorrow, that it's marked with the six little dots that's normally indicative of SAE Grade 8 hardware. Should know for sure by noonish whether I can find what I need or whether I need to order it. The ones I'm currently eying at McMaster.com are PN 90619A420, steel insert Grade 5 "Full" locknut in 5/8-18. My wife says they ship very quickly, at least on corporate accounts, but the site doesn't want to tell me what they'll charge for shipping .....

[gadget73]

Sounds like its time to buy yourself a thread gauge. One comes in almost every tap and die set, even my cheapie HF metric and standard set has both standard and metric leafs.

We order from McMaster often at work, usually the stuff arrives the next day. I've done the same on a personal order and it showed up the next business day.

[1987cp]

I theoretically have a SAE thread gauge, but it's buried somewhere. I do still have track of my metric thread gauge ... I think. And it turns out I was able to get the required locknuts at Ace, so I should be very nearly all set.