72 Duster Resurrection
Yep tell em 1972 A body
1974 upper and lower ball joints if your using those BBJ upper arms.
Kits come with idler and pitman arms too. They will ask if power or manual steering. It does make a difference. Spline count and shaft diameter on steering boxes are different from power to manual.
Yes the lower ball joints are also the steering arm. Its a mopar fact of life.
Sway bar, its up to you, but it will help with handling greatly, even more once you add 200 lbs of V8 into the front of the car. If your lower arms are tabbed for a swaybar that helps a lot. The swaybar kits include bolt on/weld in place tabs just in case your arms are not equipped.
Also is your duster a factory A/C car? If it is, it will or should have heavier duty torsion bars. Typically i believe mopar put 318 bars in slantys with factory A/C, and thicker 340 bars in 318 cars with factory A/C
Torsion bars are essentially a twisted steel forging for the spring tension. When you remove them to do the front end, the best thing is to slide them back and leave them in the trans crossmember until reassembly, however if you remove them to paint them up remember not to swap sides. Each bar is vehicle side specific because of its internal twist for it to be a spring.
If you swap them left to right, right to left, the internal effect on the bar is to untwist it. They will break. The part number is stamped on the back hex end of each bar. Along with an L or R denoting which side it belongs on. Also make sure not to put nicks or gouges in them since it will become a stress point that will weaken the bar to failure.
There is a tool to remove the bars, but there is a different way to remove them if pulling the front end apart for rebuild that only requires a 2x4 wood block and a mini sledge once you dissassemble certain things..
First thing you do after the car is jacked, under stands, and chocked w parking brake set, you take the tension off the torsion bars by backing out the adjusters in the lower arms, remove the upper control arms, and old drum brake assemblies, what will be left is the lower control arm, the strut rod going into the K frame, and the torsion bar.
You remove the snap rings the hold the torsion bars in at the back of the trans crossmember, unbolt the strut rods at the K frame, and where the rods bolt to the lower control arms. With the strut rods loosened and disconnected, and the torsion bar snap rings removed at the crossmember, undo and remove the 2 nuts in the K frame that hold the lower control arms in place. Place the wood 2x4 against the front side of the lower control arm, and smack it back towards the rear of the car with the mini sledge. This will push the arm out along with the torsion bar. No torsion bar removal tool needed.