Why are front end rebuild kits so expensive??

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flynlady

flynlady

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The B body kit was only $360 .... I best price I found for an A body rebuild kit was over $600 and didn't include pitman arm!! WHY????
 
I think they just like to rape the little guy! Make's no scene to me either why the price sometimes doubles from B bodies to A bodies. And the poor early A body guy's can't get anything sometimes!!! Just no respect!
 
Don't think I paid anything near $600 when I got everything from NAPA....
 
Don't buy a kit. (piece it)
I got all the front bushings for less than 75 bucks and Moog ball joints for 11 a piece.
 
wanta68cuda said:
I think they just like to rape the little guy! Make's no scene to me either why the price sometimes doubles from B bodies to A bodies. And the poor early A body guy's can't get anything sometimes!!! Just no respect!
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No respect whatsoever... LOL
 
mine is only $267 straight from PST and its polygraphite too. but I drive my truck and am kinda glad to be out of the A-body market corner suffering.
 
At least you don't own a C-body, like me. I rebuilt all my front ends and didn't pay near those prices. I took my time and got deals on ebay, rockauto, and Autozone. Prices vary 3x between vendors. I also got improved parts, whereas the kits have the difficult 1-piece strut rod bushings and don't have the Moog offset UCA bushings you need. I was a bit jiggy at first and paid $60 ea for my early-A ball joints, then years later got some Moog ones (China) for $15 ea. I now buy ahead when I see a deal. I also didn't replace parts that felt fine, like my upper ball joints and tie rod ends, just installed poly dust covers.

You won't find a single PN for a kit at Napa or Autozone, only at PST, Kantor, etc. You have to know what parts to buy, so read up here, or pay big $$$ for a kit.
 
I pieced my front end parts together by picking them up off eBay. They are all American made Moog parts. Check out other name brands that were American made also. Get all your part numbers together and look for the early style boxes since they won't be China made parts.
 
So far I have bought one piece at a time from rock auto. You can pick the brand you want and sometimes you can pick to get parts from the same sources to save on shipping. This has been way cheaper then buying a kit and also let me skip parts that I might not need to buy. ex i am getting tubular upper control arms so why buy bushings in the kit I wont ever use
 
I'm going to piece mine together also, but even the kits I've priced weren't anywhere near $600, not sure where you're looking for that price. Unless you're including anti-sway bars & torsion bars in that price.
 
Click on the link I provided for all of the Moog part numbers...
 
I used oem rubber from rockauto, i spent maybe 200 bucks for everything.
 
Because we don't want to do are own research and they make us think that where are the only people that has the stuff.So we buy it.If we don't buy from these high price people then they can't sell and baybe some of the prices will start coming down.. Mark
flynlady said:
The B body kit was only $360 .... I best price I found for an A body rebuild kit was over $600 and didn't include pitman arm!! WHY????
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I still want to know what this $600 kit was and what all it included. I was looking again today, most of them are around $250 with almost everything, and minus a pitman arm. I'm still going to piece mine together for less with good parts.
 
I went to rockauto.com for a pre 73 car with disc brakes ended up being $428 for new bushings, ball joints, tie rod ends, idler arm, and pitman arm all Moog products. Add about $20 extra for lower ball joints if you have drum brake car
Probably be some additional cost for shipping and handling.
MOOG Part # K7023 Problem Solver
Front Left Lower; Front Disc brakes; $51.89 $51.89
MOOG Part # K7021 Problem Solver
Front Right Lower; Front Disc brakes $51.99 $51.99
MOOG Part # K704 Problem Solver
Front Upper; Incl. $31.79 $31.79
MOOG Part # K791
Front Lower $8.60 $17.20
MOOG Part # K408 Front Upper $19.62 $19.62
MOOG Part # K7040
Front; $22.79 $22.79
MOOG Part # K7042
Front; $25.79 $25.79
MOOG Part # K7074
Front; $62.79 $62.79
MOOG Part # ES319L
Front Inner; $35.99 $71.98
MOOG Part # ES319R
Front Outer; Incl. $35.99 $71.98
Subtotal $427.82
 
R4Sedan said:
I Pieced mined together, but don't you have an early a-body I thought they were a little more.
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Yes, '66 Valiant Signet convertible ... Everything seems to cost more than the B body

I guess I need to start trying to piecemeal everything Should I just get the list of what is included in a kit and replicate it?

I'm CERTAIN the front end has never been touched on this car. Everything needs to be replaced!!
 
zhandfull said:
I went to rockauto.com for a pre 73 car with disc brakes ended up being $428 for new bushings, ball joints, tie rod ends, idler arm, and pitman arm all Moog products. Add about $20 extra for lower ball joints if you have drum brake car
Probably be some additional cost for shipping and handling.
MOOG Part # K7023 Problem Solver
Front Left Lower; Front Disc brakes; $51.89 $51.89
MOOG Part # K7021 Problem Solver
Front Right Lower; Front Disc brakes $51.99 $51.99
MOOG Part # K704 Problem Solver
Front Upper; Incl. $31.79 $31.79
MOOG Part # K791
Front Lower $8.60 $17.20
MOOG Part # K408 Front Upper $19.62 $19.62
MOOG Part # K7040
Front; $22.79 $22.79
MOOG Part # K7042
Front; $25.79 $25.79
MOOG Part # K7074
Front; $62.79 $62.79
MOOG Part # ES319L
Front Inner; $35.99 $71.98
MOOG Part # ES319R
Front Outer; Incl. $35.99 $71.98
Subtotal $427.82
Click to expand...

THANKS for this!! I have manual drum brakes (but hope to eventually upgrade to disc)
 
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