Upper control arms won’t fit.

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paredes

paredes

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So I bought all the parts I needed for the disc brake conversion. When I went to install the upper control arms they seem to be too big. I have a 68 dart, the new control arms are off a 76 should they fit with out any modifications? I’m thinking I might have bought either the wrong arms or they are bent. Thanks for the help.
 
Are they new or used? A body? Or some other body type?
 
Pics would help. I had a friend come to me with some upper arms years ago. Another fella twisted them up beyond repair pressing in new bushings.
 
what doesn't fit about them? where are they too big? 76 abody ones will bolt into any 63-76 abody
 
Are they too wide? I had the same problem when I went to put mine in. Mine seemed to be about 1/8" to 3/16" too wide with the new bushings and the metal washers on each side. On mine, the actual arms of the control arm compressed a bit (towards each other) as we installed them and they fit fine. We just got one side started, pushed the other side to get it to start and used a piece of 2x4 and a small hammer on the outer rim by the balljoint to coax them into position. It didn't take much and they slid right in.

I've gotten my whole front in and aligned and everything is fine.
 
I was advised, and followed the instructions, slightly bent the ears out slightly. Used a crescent wrench and bent the outer ears, like said about 1/8"
When you install the bolt and washers the ears will bend back to their original position.
 
I've seen a few over the years that had been assembled without the end caps on the bushings. The lack of them draws the ears closer together.
 
spread out the bracket with a piece of threaded rod, two nuts and washers
 
Frnknsteen said:
Are they too wide? I had the same problem when I went to put mine in. Mine seemed to be about 1/8" to 3/16" too wide with the new bushings and the metal washers on each side. On mine, the actual arms of the control arm compressed a bit (towards each other) as we installed them and they fit fine. We just got one side started, pushed the other side to get it to start and used a piece of 2x4 and a small hammer on the outer rim by the balljoint to coax them into position. It didn't take much and they slid right in.

I've gotten my whole front in and aligned and everything is fine.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice I’m going to give it a try as soon as I can. I think I might have distorted them when I pulled out the bushings. A friend helped me remove the old bushing we had the brilliant idea to use a scissor jack to push them out might have ruined them in the process. Seem to be a 1/8 maybe a 1/4 to big now.
Thanks for the help.
 
Diagnosis over the internet with no pictures.

How can you be sure what anyone has posted is correct and will work for you?
 
Yeah we don’t even know if they’re A-body control arms. Only that they’ve had a scissor jack taken to them.
 
If you have spread the two arms wider apart from using the jack, you could just pull them back together using a long threaded rod thru the holes. Rolled steel is forgiving and won't crack from just a little stretching. You can buy new tubular UCA's that allow better caster adjustment fairly reasonable (~$350/set) and add noticeable bling.
 
72bluNblu said:
Yeah we don’t even know if they’re A-body control arms. Only that they’ve had a scissor jack taken to them.
Click to expand...

image.jpg
 
Well those do appear to be 73-76 control arms. And it definitely looks like you spread them a bit with the scissor jack. It's not unusual to have to open up the LCA mounting ears a little bit to get the bushings to slide in, but that's not what's going on here.

Fortunately it looks like those UCA's are in really good shape, so you can probably just tighten them up a bit using the long threaded rod method Bill mentioned. Do that, then inspect them for any cracks that may have developed in the process of stretching them apart and bringing them back into shape.
 
That's exactly what mine looked like when we went to install them. Like I said above, we were able to get one side in, then compress the arms a bit and got them to go in
 
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