I am about to replace the front crossmember  on a 56 Victoria and will rebuild the front suspension during the teardown. I plan to examine , clean and reuse what is good and replace shocks and bushings for sure. While the ball joints and tie rods have fittings for lubrication, I have found no info in the shop manual as to where to lubricate the control arm bushings or the upper shafts. Should I drill the bushings and screw in grease fittings or just grease the shafts and crossmember bolts the the bushings spin on. I did a rebuild on another 56 Fairlane years ago and It was squeaky a year or two later..    George

That’s a YES on the rubber part of the bushing taking the blunt of the control arm movement.  To ensure that the rubber is not in a strain or bind when the car is in a relaxed (not moving) position, I will tighten those end nuts only after I have lowered the car so the normal weight of the car is on the wheels.  This will have the movement of the rubber in an equal strain in both the up and down positions and not at a normal or relaxed position.

If tightened while the car is still up (wheels all the way down), then the rubber is in a non-relaxed position when it’s in a normal stance and in an even more unrelaxed strain when the front-end nose dives some.  I feel that some of the squeaky bushings are a result of the rubber in the bushings being stretched beyond its limits and having some tear within them.  Some of that can be traced back to either aggressive driving, bad shock absorbers, and/or just installed where they are in a non-relaxed state when sitting at a normal stance. I trust that made sense.

Other comments always welcome.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)