'73-up brakes with smaller UBJs?

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MopaR&D

MopaR&D

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Hey guys, I recently picked up a front disk brake setup supposedly from a '76 Dart which was being run in a '66 Barracuda. Came with spindles, rotors, hubs, calipers, and pads all assembled. However something strange the seller told me, he was running the brakes with his older ('72-down, "small-ball-joint") upper control arms and replacement smaller A-body ball joints. I haven't been able to try to mock this up for myself since I sold my original '70 UCAs but has anyone else here successfully used '73-up BBP front discs with '72-down UCAs and ball joints? Would this cause any weird alignment or geometry issues? Guy said it ran fine with no problems but I'm just a little hesitant... and I want to know because he threw in a pair of new-in-box 'small' upper ball joints with the brakes, so if it'll work I'll start looking for '72-down UCAs.
 
there is the smaller ball joints used with the 9" drums and also a larger ball joint used with 10" drums, his barracuda likely had the 10" drums if thats the case they should be a bolt on to any 10" drum brake car
 
If I remember right, I think the taper on those ball joints are different. Maybe I'm thinkin about somethin else.....but somethin about it sticks out in my mind.
 
Call Dr. Diff and get the sleeve for the ball joints. About $50.

Cass, aka Dr. Diff 408-883-4772
 
OK my '70 Duster originally had K-H SBP front discs, but I sold the upper control arms with the original brake setup (thought I could make some money through the upgrade but apparently not!). If what you say is true 66plyValiant should I look for UCAs from a drum-brake car? Or do the earlier disc-brake ones use the same size ball joint as well?

Stroker the taper difference would make sense, could explain why he was able to bolt them up with (seemingly) no issues. He also seemed to imply that his car was oriented more for drag racing than handling, which may have made it harder to notice any front-end handling issues.

EDIT: crackedback just saw your post, i'm guessing you're talking about sleeves to use the smaller ball joints with the later big-ball-joint UCAs?
 
Use the 73-up big ball joint UCA. Using the wrong ball joint taper can cause breakage of the ball joint stud, bad things can happen to you and your car. Can also distort the taper in your spindle. Any 73-up a-body will have the right UCA.
 
MOPEkidD-3 said:
OK my '70 Duster originally had K-H SBP front discs, but I sold the upper control arms with the original brake setup (thought I could make some money through the upgrade but apparently not!). If what you say is true 66plyValiant should I look for UCAs from a drum-brake car? Or do the earlier disc-brake ones use the same size ball joint as well?

Stroker the taper difference would make sense, could explain why he was able to bolt them up with (seemingly) no issues. He also seemed to imply that his car was oriented more for drag racing than handling, which may have made it harder to notice any front-end handling issues.

EDIT: crackedback just saw your post, i'm guessing you're talking about sleeves to use the smaller ball joints with the later big-ball-joint UCAs?
Click to expand...

I thought you were switching a car over that was drum brake, in that case if it was 10" brakes it should have the larger ball joints, but in your case you no longer have the UCA's and they likely would have been the smaller ball joint
 
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