Dismantling the front beam

I decided to dismantle the front beam this past weekend in preparation for cleaning, painting and possibly narrowing: 

First up was the removal of the grease caps, which popped out easily enough with some gentle coxing of a flat-headed screwdriver: 

Once the nuts and washers had been taken off of the greasy spindle the outer casing of the drum brake came away without too much fuss: 

After undoing the three inner bolts the drum brake backing plate came free. Both sides came apart without any drama: 

I then removed both shocks, which were simply secured by bolts at the top and bottom:

Another two bolts later I had the steering damper detached:

The tie rods required a bit more persistence and preparation. I found that wire brushing the nut and exposed thread followed by a liberal drenching of WD40 (penetrating fluid) was the best method:

The above approach worked for all but one tie rod end (why is there always one little stubborn bugger?!). Frustratingly the thread started spinning freely before I had got the nut off. I found that no amount of clamping with the vice grips would hold the thread tightly enough to that damn nut to turn again. After some time and perseverance I decided that I would sacrifice the track rod end as I was considering replacing them all anyway. So, out came the angle grinder:

I then cleaned up the treads of the steering box and removed the unit with ease:

After loosening the clamping bolts I was able to tap out the link pins, which allowed for the removal of the spindles:

After removing the outer nuts and cleaning out the accumulated crap inside the allen key cavities, I loosed the threaded pin which holds the torsion leaves in place:

The torsion arms were then free to be removed:

Just for fun I set up an exploded view of the individual components that make up the front beam: