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experience with upper & lower arms steering assembly

949 views 10 replies 9 participants last post by  c0ugar69 
#1 ·
I need to purchase a complete bushing kit for front end, but my nagging decision is whether I really need to spent the extra $150-$200 for new upper and lower arms or just replace ball joints on them. How many of ya'll out there are still running on original arms? Have you seen any personally off of your vehicles that are cracked or damaged in any way after 30+ years of use? The new bushings and ball joints will improve steering performance rather than the new arms would, am I correct on that? Maybe your answers will help me make a decision. I just don't want to replace the arms and incur the cost if there is not something unsafe with them in the first place.:1zhelp:
 
#2 ·
Well, most lower arms are sold complete, unless you find someone that sells lower balljoints. Then you have to chisel off the rivets for the lower balljoint and then get bolts for them (no biggie I guess). The upper arms where the rod and bushing thread in are so weak, soon as you undo them, they will strip, but you can always center the shaft, thread in the ends, and then tack them in place so they wont come loose. Its more money to buy the whole assemblies, but ALOT less work too and safer I think.

Rick
 
#3 ·
check for cracks in the upper arms too.
 
#5 ·
Yes,especially if you try to weld a loose bushing into place. Save yourself some time and trouble, get the complete arms.
 
#6 ·
I had cracked ones on my old 67 stang, it even had a 3-bolt arm on e side and a 4-bolt one on the other, the 4-bolt one had fine cracks.
 
#7 ·
What are y'all's opinions on adjustable tubular arms? There's no shortage on the market; my college roommate put a nice set on his '90 Nissan 300ZX and realized very nice performance gains. "110 (mph) on the 110 (Fwy)" was a tradition for us, but usually down on the straight, interstate portion; he touched 105 on the State Route curvy part, just south of Pasadena....... 2 am on a Sunday night. I'm not saying I condone that kind of thing, I'm just saying that it's impressive.
 
#8 ·
Thanks guys. I wanna go home and check mine out now. I had them rebuilt about 5 years ago and I wonder if the shop even looked that closely? I don't drive her too much and luckily nothing has happened...yet...
 
#10 ·
Both of my uppers had splitts when torn down this summer. They were in exact spot shown in the above picture. Total of 4 splitts found and I had orerd just upper joints and axel for shock tower mount. This set time table back a whole week waiting for uppers then.
 
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