I rebuilt the my front end on my '72 today and....

[AKcharger]

It went suprisingly well! 

I Replaced upper/lower ball joints, inner/outer tie rod ends and Pittman arm. While we had every thing apart, we also replace the upper and lower control arm bushings. Here's the lessons learned:

- Don't even THINK about doing it without having the right tools!!! My pal bought all the tools from "just suspensions" and the tools were worth their weight in gold!!

- Use polyurathane bushings! On the lower control arms we had to hammer them in, if it was rubber they would have just bent or ripped, the urathane bushings held their shape perfect

- If the bushings look a little worn...they're worse! I was going to just take a short cut and blow off the bushings but I'm glad I replaced them. While the bushings looked OK on the outside they were actually rubbing metal to metal.

Everything came off and went to gether well...only glitch was NAPA gave me one wrong tie rod end and I had to reuse one.

Cost: Ball joints/tie rods/pittman arm - $265
        Bushings - Got 'em a while ago but I think it was $20-30
        Tools - Pal paid  I think $190 for the complete set (worth every cent)

Time - Two of us about 8 hours

Good luck!

AK

[Chryco Psycho]

 

[d72hemi]

I have a question. are the tools that you need to rebuild the front end of your 72 available for "rent" from Auto Zone or some place like that. I am looking into rebuilding the front end of my 72 in Feb/March, but almost $200 for tools on top of the cost of parts is a little much for me.

[AKcharger]

I'm with ya' there 72. I'm very grateful my pal had them. Auto parts stores would have a few like forks and maybe the ball joint pullers but the bushing pullers no-way...at least I'd bet a months pay they don't, too specialized. You know that would be a good thing for a car club to invest in and let all the members use them

Well good luck sir!

[Silver R/T]

nice job

[TruckDriver]

I hope you had fun doing it. Cause I need some help doing mine now

[Runner]

i did my daughters car in all moog rubber bushings and did my sdatellte in polyurathane and i wish i would have went all runner on it as well.   when its warm outside they are fine,  but my satellite is my daily driver and when its cooler out like this morning ( about 24 degrees) the urathane bushings are embarassingly noisy. 


   id like to get the lower control arm bushing tools.  i usually burn them out then air hammer the outer sleeve out of the control arm. 

[AKcharger]

I haven't noticed squeeks yet!

OH one other suggestion. That top ball joint was a bear!!! I used a 5 foot steel pipe (actually an old 20mm gun barrel) on a 1/2 drive to pop it loose

[71charger_fan]

I bought a 3/4" drive breaker bar years ago to help with the upper ball joints. My 1/2" drive one would bow so far as to be scary. I too use a 5' piece of pipe. I'm hoping that the balljoints I put in back in the winter of 96/97 outlive me. They still seem as good as new even with the dreaded F/M/J/R knuckles.