Ball joint adapters
- Thread starter MvJackson
- Start date
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TrailBeast
AKA Mopars4us on Youtube
I remember a guy awhile back got some of those but we never heard from him again to find out how it went.
Seriously though, there was someone here that got them and I have heard of them before, but nothing bad.
abodyjoe
Well-Known Member
yea i remember someone here using them.. i guess they will work,, i just don't like them. i'd rather have the barge ball joint..
aaadave
Well-Known Member
i used them in my 72 dart when i changed over to disk, mainly cause i already had nearly new ball joints and control arm bushings. i figured that if they were unsafe, cass woud'nt be selling them. seems to work fine. dave.
You're kidding right ? Safety has nothing to do with it. Aftermarket will throw anything out there to make a dime. See Takata airbags, Firestone tires, and many more for examples.
In the case of upper ball joints, a long time ago some engineers determined that the smaller ball joint would not handle the added stresses from larger brake assemblies where higher weight / momentum required those larger brakes. Of course this was back when more owners drove their vehicles anywhere and everywhere. If your daily commute doesn't include a washed out dirt path or steep mountain side... Me, I still wouldn't dismiss or override the engineering.
abodyjoe
Well-Known Member
did chrysler decide the smaller joints werent strong enough or just decide to only have to buy one ball joint across the board?
Problem is. I have a disc Setup from a 72 scamp. I was hoping they were 73 brakes but was sadly mistaken when I pulled them off. Now I want 5 on 4.5 lug pattern to get rid of the adapters that were on my car when I bought it. I also have a right stuff detailing kit that is big bolt pattern. I need to find a way to make this work for the least amount possible. Since nobody makes big bolt rotors to fit a 72 spindle with disc brakes I was hoping to find someone on here that had experience with these. This is a daily driven car. Freeway and all.
Winner!
I dont know what "across the board" implies. Do e, b, c, f,m,j, all use this same upper ball joint ?
They continued to use the smaller a-body ball joint, employing both large and small for several years after they determined a larger joint was required in certain applications.
abodyjoe
Well-Known Member
It was a cost cutting effort by Chrysler. 73 up A bodies also only had one lower ball joint part number instead of three for 72 back. Same deal, cost cutting.
73 up A bodies, 62 up B bodies and the E, F, M, J bodies all used the same thread in upper ball joint. Same part number for all of them.
C's used a larger piece.
Not sure what you mean by "they continued to use the smaller a-body ball joint...". Its use ended after 1972.
ok then. To sum up what we have thus far... The larger vehicles always did need larger suspension components. The a-body never did and still to this day doesn't.
I soooo want to bring c-body tie rod ends on a-body into this BS, but I regress.
I also backspaced away a couple of statements about dealerships depending on part failures and services required.
My final comments,
Chrysler corporation is not the poor folks in this. Never was.
Those of us ( myself included ) that need a "solution bushing" for to mix matched parts more suit the poor folks description.
If you know all the testing has been done, The "solution bushing" is proven safe and dependable, in any application, why not
If you're out to get large bolt pattern, larger than 14 inch wheels, and believe everything you read online,,, good luck
I soooo want to bring c-body tie rod ends on a-body into this BS, but I regress.
I also backspaced away a couple of statements about dealerships depending on part failures and services required.
My final comments,
Chrysler corporation is not the poor folks in this. Never was.
Those of us ( myself included ) that need a "solution bushing" for to mix matched parts more suit the poor folks description.
If you know all the testing has been done, The "solution bushing" is proven safe and dependable, in any application, why not
If you're out to get large bolt pattern, larger than 14 inch wheels, and believe everything you read online,,, good luck
Last edited:
DoctorDiff
Well-Known Member
The tapered end of the small A-body upper ball joint is the same size found on Chevelle, Camaro, Nova etc...
Except that's not the way it happened. The K772 ball joint first went into service in 1957 and was on all of the Dodge/Plymouth/DeSoto cars. The K778 came out in 1960, but the ball joint used on the Chryslers from 1957 to 1959 had the same taper diameter as the K778's, the thread depth on the ball joint changed. So, they already had the larger ball joints, and what happened was that they designed an entirely new ball joint for the A-bodies in 1960. Probably because they thought it would be cheaper to make the smaller ball joint, since the A-bodies were the economy car. So, the engineering would have said they could use a smaller ball joint. Notice too that not all C-bodies got the larger ball joints, the earlier ones used the B/E/F/M/J/R ball joints.
K772: 57-64 All (except A body, Chrysler), 65-73 C body, 65-79 B body, 70-74 E body, 73-76 A body, 76-80 F body, 79-81 R body, 77-89 M body, 80-83 J body
K704 : 60-62 Valiant/Lancer, 62-72 A body
K778: 60-75 Imperial, 74-78 C body, 92-96 Viper, 1974-94 D100-D350 and B100-B350, 95-03 Ram 1500-3500, 87-96 Dakota's, etc
In 1973 they didn't just change the ball joints either, they streamlined a bunch of stuff. All the disk brakes were made the same except for C-bodies/trucks - same rotors, same wheel bearings, same caliper brackets (they didn't even go to the larger 11.75" rotors the B/R bodies until '75). The 9" drums went away. All of the disk cars except the A and C bodies used the same spindles, and really the A-body should have used it, but the factory was still clinging to bias ply's. There was a major streamlining in '73. Before my time, but I think there was something called an "oil crisis"? Car sales dropped on everything but the /6 models, the E body was killed off entirely in '74. It was cheaper to make the same part for everything.
It's not just a larger vehicle thing, you're assuming they NEEDED the larger ball joints. Some of those B-body wagons weighed more than the C-body hardtops. So, why didn't they get the larger ball joints? A '74 Monaco weighs 4,300 lbs, a 2003 Ram 3500 weighs 6,945 lbs and has a GVW of 9,000 lbs. Will the math tell you that both of those vehicles NEED the same ball joint taper diameter? I dunno, they're totally different suspension systems, and the math is complex. But they both use the same ball joint, even though one has a GVW 2x the other.
There's way too much that goes into manufacturing to just assume the factory changed something because it was better, stronger, or necessary. Cost analysis plays a HUGE role in everything. Most often, it's the cheapest option that wins out. And if it's cheaper to use a larger ball joint even when it's not necessary because you can make (or are already making) millions of them instead of making specific ball joints for each application, well, that may have been exactly what happened. Or maybe the smaller ball joints are a time bomb and the factory realized it. But good luck figuring out which it actually was.
Personally I'd rather have the larger ball joints, given that I run tires that no one could even imagine on an A-body in 1974. But maybe they're still overkill, I don't know.
And then there's that.
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