69 Dart 4 door cruiser

[Kern Dog]

Ahhhh…. It has the desirable 73-76 A body 11” disc brakes too!

These came with 2.60” single piston calipers. It is a pretty good setup. I’m not a fan of the front mounted caliper though.

In my other cars that have the A body disc brakes knuckles/spindles, I put the calipers to the rear for two reasons. I like the way it looks with the caliper behind the axle centerline and the brake line isn’t in the way of the upper ball joint nut and cotter key. I’ve used brake hoses from an Aspen/Volare/Diplomat/LeBaron from 1976-89. The calipers from those cars fit and have a bigger 2.75” piston. Rick Ehrenberg has warned that a brake hose has to cross axle centerline but I figure if the hose isn’t in a kink and if the tires don’t come close to it, it will be fine. It always has for me.

The UCA bushings are bad…

I have spares. In fact, I have a set of low mile urethane UCA bushings I had in my Charger for a few years before I switched to the offset bushings in that car.

I’ll probably stick with the rubber bushings for this car since I’m just looking for a cruiser that is a bit better than stock.
Those dust shields will be pulled and tossed…

I pull those from every car I have. Why trap heat?
The LCA bushing on the left is gone, the right side is shredding. I have poly but I’ll replace these with standard rubber.
Time for a front end rebuild. I’ll only replace the ball joints and tie rod ends if they have slop.

 

[mopowers]

What's the reasoning behind ditching the 11" drums out back?

 

[Kern Dog]

I guess I could keep them and just use a smaller rear wheel cylinder. I just figure that the bigger rear brakes might lock up before the fronts. That is great for a drift car but not for a cruiser. I don't think that any A body ever came with an 11 inch rear drum setup.

 

[mygasser]

just plumb an adjustable proportioning valve in the rear line..... if you have rear lock up issues that is. it may be fine and you're worrying over a 'maybe/what if'. you won't know 'til you drive it.
neil.

 

[JDMopar]

I bought a 74 Dart Swinger around 1989. 318/904 with PS, PDB, AC. It had an 8 1/4 in it with the 2.45 Bonneville Salt Flat gears....and had those big finned rear drums. I never had any problems with the rear brakes locking up too quick if I had to jump on the brakes pretty hard.

 

[Kern Dog]

I have a few things percolating here.....
Front end rebuild, reinforcing the LCAs, installation of a big sway bar and some parts swapping from the parts shed!

 

[Kern Dog]

The front end rebuild on this car is a bit different.
First, I got the car and first expected it to be what they all seem to be....drum brake, small upper ball joint, no sway bar. In January I contacted Dr Diff and got one of those kits he has to allow small ball joint UCAs to fit into the 73-89 disc brake knuckles. This kit is simple: Two conical shaped sleeves and two locking nuts:

The day I picked up the car, I saw it had the desirable A body disc brakes up front. I decided to pull the UCAs that were on the car and save them for a future project. These small ball joint UCAs have good ball joints and boots but the bushings were worn enough to warrant replacement.

I pressed in new bushings and spritzed the UCAs a semi gloss black. Not concourse correct but so what? No offset bushings. As long as I can get 2 to 2 1/2 degrees of caster, I'll be satisfied.

 

[Kern Dog]

The lower control arms were cleaned up and the shafts were pressed out.

Next up is to press out the bushing outer shell. If you've done this before, you know what is involved.

The shell can stay in place for people that want to use poly bushings. If you're using factory style rubber, the shell has to come out since the new bushing has it's own outer shell. The problem is, there is no easy way to get the old shell out. Rick Ehrenberg wrote about using a large tap to chew into it and twist it out. If you have a welder, this is the way I do it.....

You can get a washer or in my case, a valve spring retainer.

You then weld around the edge of the retainer, turn the UCA over and press the shell out from the other side:

You can see down through the hex hole...The press now has that welded on spring retainer to press against.
The LCA bushings go in next. I want to reinforce the bottoms of the LCAs like this:

Before that, I need to figure out a way to attach these special sway bar end links. I wish that these LCAs had the sway bar tabs like these:

They don't but there is a workaround....

 

[Kern Dog]

 

[Kern Dog]

 

[Kern Dog]

I have a few different types of end links I can use.

These first two pictures show ball jointed flexible links that bolt directly to the sway bar. You'd think that would increase noise or harshness but the ones I used in my Charger didn't seem to do that.

The bottom two pictures show a regular straight link and then one that has a loop at the bottom. That one with the loop may factor in with the rear sway bar I'll be using. Stay tuned....

 

[Kern Dog]

The front sway bar I'll be using is an 1 1/4" unit from a 73-87 Chevy/GMC 1 ton 2WD. They start off looking like this:

The outer ears have to be cut off.

I did my first one of these way back in 2001. I laid underneath my 1984 Chevy truck and noticed that the sway bar was shaped really close to the shape of my 70 Charger front sway bar. I've since modified several for other B bodies, a Challenger and a few A bodies too.
In the last project, I measured between the sway bar tabs from one LCA to the other and came up with just shy of 40":

I took a grinder with a cutoff wheel....

The ends were tapered and holes were drilled for end links.

 

[Kern Dog]

The bar cost me $35 at the junkyard, the D bushings were $25. I had the end links here. I made the mounting brackets that hold it to the K member.
$60 for a HUGE front sway bar is a fraction of the cost of a new one.
To show how close the Chevy sway bar shape is to a 70-72 B body, check out how another one I did compares to a new QA 1 front bar:

The QA 1 bar was slightly wider at the end links.

The Chevy bar is slightly narrow for the B body but will fit the narrower A body chassis a bit better.

 

[mopowers]

That's an interesting way to mount the end links. I hadn't seen that article before. This is excellent info. You're putting those high dollar parts to shame!

Any idea what angle the taper in the upper ball joint shank(?) is? Those adapters looks like a fun lathe project..

 

[DionR]

I used that info to build some swaybar endlinks too.

I want to do the something similar on my '73 G3 swapped car, but I want something off the shelf that doesn't need to be cut and welded.

I will add that using these links means the swaybar doesn't self center. Mine is all the way to the DS and the endlink actually rubs the strut rod. I need to find a tube clamp that I can use to maintain the swaybar in the proper location.

 

[abdywgn]

THANKS for all the information and pictures!

 

[Kern Dog]

That's an interesting way to mount the end links. I hadn't seen that article before. This is excellent info. You're putting those high dollar parts to shame!

Any idea what angle the taper in the upper ball joint shank(?) is? Those adapters looks like a fun lathe project..

I don't know. The small and big ball joints look to have the same angle but a different diameter.

 

[Kern Dog]

I made a little bit of progress today. The valve spring retainers were welded to the bushing shells…

Don’t worry… the weld appearance does not matter.
Into the press…

It is almost out.

I grabbed it with Channel Locks and it came out easy from there. Next, installation of the bushing and shaft. There is certainly a correct way to do this but I’m not sure what that is. Last August I did a front end rebuild in my 72 Duster. I pressed the bushing into the arm then the shaft into the bushing. In doing so, I damaged one bushing when the shaft was a tight fit.
This time, I pressed the shaft onto the bushing then put them together into the arm.

Done.

 

[Kern Dog]

I made a tool to press on the outer ridge of the bushing instead of pushing on the shaft.

Seated.

Done. Now the other side.

With both bushings in, I moved onto the sway bar stuff. With all the different links I have, I figured to just go with a traditional style link setup so I needed to make brackets to attach the sway bar to both the K member and to the control arms.
I made aluminum mounts here:

Oh yeah, that bar is a massive 1 1/4”. The 1/2 ton and some 3/4 ton Chevy trucks from 73-87 used a smaller 1 1/16” front bar. That would have been fine too but this was in the shed and cost me nothing.

I did notch the K member to allow the bar to sit further forward. The stock sway bar in the 73-76 cars is what… maybe 11/16” or 3/4” ?

 

[Kern Dog]

The bar clears everything. Next is the tabs/brackets on the lower control arms. For years, people have paid a premium for lower control arms with these tabs. They are not that complicated. ( Almost worth making them to sell at swap meets!)
My first one had the right shape but needed to be further off of the control arms.

I may shorten the links to tuck the bar up a bit.

The links needed to be about 3/4” longer.

I went to the metal stash and found some 2x2.

2 3/8” long across the top, 3/8” down the front to a 45 degree angle.

The top is level with the top edge of the control arm.

There was a little gap. I cut the sides by 1/8” to close up the gap at the top here.

 

[Kern Dog]

With both sides mocked up, I welded a short section on each arm and will weld the rest with the arms off the car.

Yes, the bushings are two different colors. This is the mock up stage. I do intend to use matching bushings when I assemble it fully.
Next up, the LCA stiffening plates.
Here is something to consider….
There is a guy that is on the Mopar forums that likes to question everything including the value of the popular stiffening plates. He sees people adding them and thinks that most people are sheep…that they are adding weight while they probably won’t ever push their car to the point where the plates will prove their value. I could see his point on cars without sway bars. Every car that I have has sway bars so I’m going to add the plates.
Nothing too thick though…. I’m just using 14 gauge sheet metal. More tomorrow.

 

[JDMopar]

Love the brackets you made and welded to the LCA's for the sway bar!

 

[Kern Dog]

I know that some of this stuff I’m doing can be bought and delivered to my door but I enjoy the process of fabricating and making parts.

I used a piece of cardboard for a template.

This was not scientific or anything. I just made an oval hole to allow access for a 3/4” socket to reach the torsion bar adjuster and another hole to reach the nut for the bump stop.

Weld-R-Up!

Ready for primer and paint.

Yeah… I hung them from the car.

Just a few more parts to clean and then I can get to assembly.
I knew a dude that rarely cleaned anything… his cars often looked junkyard fresh.
That just ain’t me, man.

 

[abdywgn]

hey! the car is helping out with the project. it really appreciates all the attention it is getting.
the bottom plates look better than the ones you can purchase.

 

[mopowers]

Screw paying for a special cnc water-jet cut piece of steel when you can make it in 15 mins. Nice paint booth by the way.