Threadliness is next to Godliness

New die arrived and the threads got cleaned up. Clean threads make a huge difference in one's quality of life.  

 While cleaning the forward stud, I realized someone else had had the same problem as I had with the aft stud spinning under torque. What I thought was a blob of tar or undercoating was someone's slag-weld job.

 

It's especially amusing because the forward stud is actually a bolt and you can reach the head of it pretty easily to hold it. Oh well. The lower A-arm bolted on with its shims, and then all the front suspension is done. (Recall I had done the starboard side previously, and due to my lack of skill it was a horrific job that I swore I would never do again, which is actually quite easy now. Don't be deterred.) 

A combination of a child, an old front tube bumper, and a couple of tires got me to the ~150 lbs needed on suspension preload, then tightened it all down. Glorious!

I noted previously that the car had become very hard to start and needed a kick in the bum from ether. This was unusual, as the carb rebuild is not very old, and it has started pretty quickly up until now. I cranked a while and then hopped out and began unscrewing the fuel line to the carb to see if it was getting fuel. As I jiggled the line where the (newish) fuel filter is mounted, it made some pretty jingle-bell noises. Since it's not even Halloween yet, I took the filter off and realized it had collapsed somehow and was not doing any sort of filtering at all, and potentially blocking fuel flow when the detached piece rolls around inside.

 

Replaced the filter (Autozone only had one carb filter in stock, which was eye-opening) and that seems to be better although we'll see what it does after sitting a while.