Front Suspension rebuild

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charger426

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So I'm starting to look doing a full front suspension rebuild on my 71 Swinger. The one think I'm starting to get a head ache over is the control arms. I was planning on doing a rebuild with everything QA1 makes (minus k member). But I've started to see some threads talk about how tubular control arms are a wast and a good set of bushings in stock control arms would do just fine for street use. The plan is to re-do the front suspension when I swapping in a BB. The car will be used for driving around town, some highway runs, and maybe once or twice in its life a trip down the track. While I'm game to spend a little more money when I see an advantage I'm not rich by any sense of the word so if there isn't a benefit in going with tubular control arms outside of them being a little lighter and looking cool I'll just rebuild my stock arms.
 
I rebuilt my oem suspension with poly bushings and Moog parts, in 99, also because I wasnt rich, and same app. as yours. 125,000 miles. Ive never been sorry. I highly recommend Moogs offset UCA bushings for extra caster.
 
In my own oppinion the factory stuff works very well with new bushings as long as it in good condition.
Maybe gusset the lower arms in like the mods that are around, and good sized torsion bars, then a decent sway bar would be a great low cost darn good start.

You might consider poly bushings.
They convey a little more road noise, but they sure are a lot easier to work with than the pressed in type.

I see AJ is faster than I am :D
 
charger426 said:
So I'm starting to look doing a full front suspension rebuild on my 71 Swinger. The one think I'm starting to get a head ache over is the control arms. I was planning on doing a rebuild with everything QA1 makes (minus k member). But I've started to see some threads talk about how tubular control arms are a wast and a good set of bushings in stock control arms would do just fine for street use. The plan is to re-do the front suspension when I swapping in a BB. The car will be used for driving around town, some highway runs, and maybe once or twice in its life a trip down the track. While I'm game to spend a little more money when I see an advantage I'm not rich by any sense of the word so if there isn't a benefit in going with tubular control arms outside of them being a little lighter and looking cool I'll just rebuild my stock arms.
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I'm going to rebuild the front end on my Scamp here very soon. I have a problem where I read and read every detail before I start working on stuff. lol.

I've read different arguments of the tubular vs. OEM control arms, and decided to go with OEM rebuilt LCA and aftermarket tubular for the UCA.

I also had a headache about the bushings but, I found a shop near me who charged $90 out the door to rebuild the LCAs.

Ended up buying all Moog parts (minus the UCA bushings, ball joints) from Summit and it was less than $300 for the entire front end.
 
Saverio said:
I have a problem where I read and read every detail before I start working on stuff. lol.
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I'm the same way lol. Hence why I'm asking this question. I've also seen people say that you HAVE to reinforce where the t-bars are installed on the lower control arms or they will fall apart. Then we see people that haven’t touched their LCAs and are running them hard with no problems.
 
The uppers are a concern too. Pressing the bushings out and in can bend the arms. Be careful. I bent one of mine in a heartbeat. Just sayin'
 
charger426 said:
I'm the same way lol. Hence why I'm asking this question. I've also seen people say that you HAVE to reinforce where the t-bars are installed on the lower control arms or they will fall apart. Then we see people that haven’t touched their LCAs and are running them hard with no problems.
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You probably already thought of watching or reinforcing where the T bars go through the cross member also then.
With a big block and heavy bars it could end up twisting the sockets out.

One of our members did his like this, and the lower arm reinforcments are also pretty easy to make.
Or you can buy them already made from www.p-s-t.com
 

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I added the boxing plate shown above and added new bushings. I didn't add the reinforcing plate around the torsion bar mount because I don't run BIG bars (.920) and don't plan on auto crossing it. New bushings in the uppers and replaced everything that could be in the steering. A good sway bar will be my next step.
 
T-bars is another mistery for me. I was thinking about running 1.02 bars from pst. Sounds like a lot of guys like those bars even when driving mostly in the street. I already picked up a set of single adjustable QA1 shocks
 
So I've been digging around is there some sort of tech article on rebuilding control arms? If the process isn't too bad I'm starting to lean towards just rebuilding my current arms.
 
How common is it to twist torsion bar mounts? (on a stock sb street driven car, no visible rust issues). I have the reinforcing plates on the LCAs and tightened them up (thanks Jim Lusk for the video)..
 
AJ/FormS said:
Did I mention that I had the 1.03s? Well they are not too big. Then again for street duty I havent felt the need to upsize. Yet.
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What shocks are you using? From what I've been reading that can make a big difference on how street friendly 1.03s are. Also, are your clocked? I'm still trying to lean what clocking the bars does and why pst only does it on their 1.02 bars.
 
Ben Drinkin said:
How common is it to twist torsion bar mounts? (on a stock sb street driven car, no visible rust issues). I have the reinforcing plates on the LCAs and tightened them up (thanks Jim Lusk for the video)..
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I think it's probably more common on big block cars with the heavy bars, and it's possible that material degradation from rust has some to do with it.
Personally, I have never seen it happen at all.




charger426 said:
What shocks are you using? From what I've been reading that can make a big difference on how street friendly 1.03s are. Also, are your clocked? I'm still trying to lean what clocking the bars does and why pst only does it on their 1.02 bars.
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PST made the 1.03 bars non clocked/offset and a lot of people had issues with not being able to get thier car up enough, so they changed them some time back.
ALL thier bars are 30 degree clocked/offset now even though some of thier literature says otherwise. (I went through all that with them recently over my 1.03)
The 1.03 bars are going to be a little softer with a big block.

The zero clocked bars were meant for lowering the car without having to be to concerned about bottoming out the suspension.
 
My bars came from the Chrysler dealer, in yr2000. Dont recall if they were clocked. I can tell you this; with the suspension unloaded, the wheels hanging down to the UCA bumper limit, I can just barely get the bars into the sockets.So I suppose they are clocked. Another thing is this: It takes very little preload to get the K up to 5.5inches ground clearance, with 235/70-14s. I doubt I could run 5 inches.
As to the sockets ripping out: hmmm.I suspect the X-member might have been rust compromised.My car has,on occasion, been air-born, and banged hard on the limiters. The sockets are still there. Just saying.
-I have seen several 318Ks with the LCA pin sockets ripped out though.Hard to imagine how that could occur.
 
After watching a video on YouTube of someone replacing control arm bushings I think that's the way I'm going to go. Now I know my passenger side ball joint is differnt than the drivers side. The passenger side is bigger, to the point where my tire rubs before lock when turning to the right. I'm hoping the passenger side is just a crappy ball joint and replacing it will fix my rubbing problem
 
To Charger;Yes, over the years, there have been many different companies selling suspension parts. Some of the aftermarket stuff is pure crap. There have been various sized ball-sockets out there. The smallest Ive seen for the 67 to 72 A-bodys are the oem Mopar stuff circa the 60s and 70s. The Moogs and old TRWs are/were pretty tight too. The off brand has considerable variation.I found running a 15 inch front wheel on my 68 almost got the wheel off the BJ. I wee bit of grinding on a socket-flat fixed er up. That 15 incher was a Wheel Vintiques custom Rallaye wheel, 5X4, and custom backspace. Used em one summer with sticky rubber. The tires were real soft and it didnt take long to trash em. Not 8 weeks. Sure was fun while it lasted.
-Wait, I just reread your post. Im not getting it. How is it possible for the tire to rub on a bj, when turning and not when straight? The relationship between the two is fixed in space. Or is the tire rubbing on a tierod. If yes, thats indicative of a different problem.
-Could be; broken/missing/hammered stop on the LCA or LBJ, bent steering arm,or mismatched wheel backspaces. You might want to look into those before you replace the bj, unless, of course the bj needs replacing anyway.
 
AJ i don't know why it hits the ball joint but it does lol. With my stock steel wheels and 195 tires it doesn't hit. But when I put my ralley wheels on the passenger side rubbes the ball joint when turned to the left. I will say I haven't tried my ralley wheels since I did my Scarbird conversation so the extra thickness of the rotor hat might be enough of a spacer to correct the problem.
 
I just rebuilt my front end on my Duster. That alone will make a huge difference. I reused my stock components with the moog rebuild kit. I brought my upper and lower control arms in and had the old bushings pressed out and new ones pressed in. Cost me around 40.00. It was worth it in my opinion.
 
Charger; I assumed when you said it rubbed on the bj, you meant upper bj, and you proved it.If thats true and it only does it near full lock, Id be looking at the wheel bearing adjustment. Like I said that relationship is fixed in space. Something has to be moving, or is bent. Possibly, but hardly likely, the bj pin.I would also be looking/comparing the wheel backspaces. Occasionally the wheel-weights hit. They usually come off then.
-On the other hand, if you are just going by sound, its not uncommon for the wheel center to rub on a caliper.Again, look to the wheel bearing adjustment.
-Happy hunting

As an aside, you cannot accurately set the toe on just about any non r&p car with the wheels hanging down, unless you have previously engineered all the bump-steer out of it, and set the camber to zero, and possibly the caster also. As the wheel goes up and down,the toe generally,changes. And if you have increased the caster with the bushings you may be in for a treat.
-Thats why its almost critical that you choose a reasonable ride height before the alignment and to not mess with it afterwards. The suspension/steering systems may have only a very narrow window of near-zero bump-steer. maybe 2 inches or so. Your ride-height needs to be in it, in order for it to be relatively free from a hard-to-find wandering symptom.I say almost critical, because the bump-steer toe-change is for most people,not generally,noticeable.It usually only manifests on asphalt highways with tire grooves from semis or in gusty crosswinds. And of course, when landing a wheelie.
-So dont be rushing out to get your bump-steer checked/fixed, on your streeter.Its not cheap or easy.
 
Yeah it was the upper ball joint, sorry I didn’t make that clear. By wheel bearing adjustment are you talking about tighten the castle nut that hold the bearings and hub onto the spindle?

Another factor that might have caused the rub was I looked at everything while it was jacked up by the K-frame, so the suspension was fully extended. The old studs where so loose (I pushed them out with my thumb) that I couldn’t get the rally wheels to tighten down. When I did the Scarbird conversion I had to replace the studs outs so I have fresh studs that are nice and tight now. I haven't tried the rally wheels after the conversion because I did the conversion right before winter and I rather run around on the old hub caps rather than get salt or anything the new rallys.

The part that never made sense to me was why only the passenger side rubbed. The only difference I could see was the ball joint itself. Even the zert fitting are different, the driver’s side is pointing straight up while the passenger side is a 90 degree style.
 
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