Front end rebuild 1972 Duster

[Kern Dog]

There are a few ways to remove that shell. Some will smash and chisel the end and pry on it until it pops out.
If you have one of THESE though…

Just clean the edge of the bearing shell.

Weld a washer to the edge.

Now you have a surface to press against from the back side to drive it out.

Next, the pocket is cleaned up a bit.

Just press the bushing in.

The last step is the shaft.

I’ll show you how to screw up the bushing by doing this wrong. I know because I just did it the wrong way and have to replace the bushing.
More to come.

 

[Kendog 170]

I too did the offset UCA bushings. They work well.
Thanks for sharing. I'm sure it will help other members that haven't done any of this yet.

 

[R4Sedan]

Real good write up KD.

 

[Beams]

Thanks, Kern Dog. Great timing, as I’m starting to chip away at my front end rebuild.

 

[Kern Dog]

I'm glad to help.
Please understand that what I do here isn't the only way to do this. There may be better methods and I'm willing to take advice from those with more experience. I usually take the control arms to a shop to have them changed out but I wanted to do it all myself from now on. I'll be doing the alignment too since I bought this gauge:

I made a disc that attaches to the spindle:

From there, the gauge has a magnetic base:

More on that later.

 

[Kern Dog]

Finding a lower control arm
Bushing is not as easy as it used to be
I did find one locally, but….

Take a closer look.

Offset lower control arm bushing???
This piece of crap was way off center. Once installed, it might line up but it would probably distort…the thin side would then have a gap and the thicker side would be squeezed.
OR it would result in more negative or more positive camber.

What junk!

 

[townsend]

Are there any numbers on the inside top or bottom flaps of the box.

 

[Kern Dog]

That Moog bushing came from an Advance auto parts store.
I went to another store…
O Riellys doesn’t sell Moog. They sell this now.

Same part number.

Better looking bushing though.

It looks centered anyway.

 

[Kern Dog]

The Moog bushing was made in India.

 

[S'cuder]

Harris bushings are good stuff.

 

[Kern Dog]

I mentioned before…. this:

I’ll show you how to screw up the bushing by doing this wrong. I know because I just did it the wrong way and have to replace the bushing.
More to come.

Pressing the new bushing in is easy.
You just support the LCA so it is square and level using spacers, hollow sections of pipe, whatever you have. Make it safe though. When you apply pressure, the force of the press can spit your spacers out if they aren’t placed properly.

The bushing has that lip at the top. I used a Craftsman 1 1/4” socket.

Press until the lip of the bushing shell meets the pocket and sits even.

Now this is where you have to be careful, the installation of the pivot shaft.
See the damage I did ?

Looking closer, the inner sleeve got pushed too far in and it tore the rubber loose.

This happens when you press in the pivot shaft if you do it wrong.

 

[Kern Dog]

The inner shell/sleeve of the bushing needs to be supported from the back side as you press in the shaft.

Above you can see the rubber deform as the shaft gets pressed in. That doesn’t happen if you support the other end of the sleeve. I measured an old inner sleeve.

A 3/8” drive socket was the same diameter.

11/16” for reference.

With the socket in the torsion bar hex socket to support the inner sleeve…

No damage. The inner sleeve ended up where it should.

Now to better weld the stiffener plates, sand blasted and paint.

 

[Kendog 170]

I used two pieces of pipe. One cut a little longer than the bushing. Some Heavy washers and a piece of treaded 1/2" rod. Used for removal and installation. Easy peasy. Sorry no pics.

Edited.
My bad. I used this method on the Upper arms so please disregard.

 

[Kern Dog]

That is a great idea. I may take the time to make some specific tools to do this stuff. Being retired, I have some free time.
Today was a parts cleaning day. I used the wire wheel on the bench grinder to clean off the dirt, grease and surface rust, then a few minutes in this:

The bare steel stuff will flash rust eventually but not if you coat it with this:

I've read in some restoration books where some people will wipe down unpainted steel and cast iron stuff with gear oil, then wipe as much off as possible. That does work but will still attract dust and dirt. The RPM stuff coats the metal and dries with no sheen. Dust washes off of it. I used this stuff on my Charger in 2022:

 

[Kendog 170]

I used two pieces of pipe. One cut a little longer than the bushing. Some Heavy washers and a piece of treaded 1/2" rod. Used for removal and installation. Easy peasy. Sorry no pics.

Edited.
My bad. I used this method on the Upper arms so please disregard.

Note edited! sorry for the mis info.

 

[roadrunnerh]

Very nice progress!
I also bought the HF 20 ton shop press for the front end work on the Scamp.
I've been very satisfied with mine.

 

[Kendog 170]

I've got an antique manual press. Packed away currently. Works great. If you can't press a bearing you're not going on straight .
Wish I had a pics. Got it from an old timer that use to build dragsters.

 

[Kern Dog]

The PST kit came today.
I was already ahead of the game a bit before the stuff arrived. I used some of my new/unused stuff including urethane strut rod bushings, offset upper control arm bushings, lower control arm bushings and upper ball joints.

You may wonder why I’d buy a whole kit when all I really needed was lower ball joints and grease boots. I know, it seems odd but have you tried to find grease boots for ball joints? If there are some available that fit like stock that you can buy without having to buy a ball joint with it, I’d love to know. You can get grease seals for tie rod ends but they are like umbrellas. They do keep dirt out (sort of) but the grease can just weep out as you drive. This means more frequent lube jobs and grease blobs on the underside of the car.

Of course, the upper and lower control arm hardware is still loose and won’t be tightened until the car is on the ground.

I mentioned this front sway bar earlier…

It won’t look familiar. It is from a 1973-87 Chevy 2WD C-30 1 ton truck and it measures 1 1/4”.
In 2000 I was in the early days of tinkering with my ‘70 Charger and looking for ways to improve the handling. I was under my ‘84 Chevy truck and noticed that the shape was similar to the Charger front sway bar. I found that with a little work, the Chevy bar could be modified to fit the car. The ends of the bar had to be cut back and new holes drilled for the end links. The Chevy bar fit but was slightly narrow from end link to end link. The B body chassis is a bit wider than the 67-76 A body so it turns out that the A body is a better fit.

I’ve made 5 of these for myself and friends. One is in my 67 Dart, another in my Jigsaw Charger, another was put in a 71 Challenger.

The end links are just the right width for this car.
I know, aftermarket sway bars are available but cheap upgrades like this are right up my alley. You can get a bar like this at a junkyard for less than $40. I already had bushings and hardware so this setup was cheap. I haven’t seen any aftermarket bars of this size for this car so that is a plus.

This car still has stock .85 torsion bars and parts store shocks. Even with a worn out front end, it rode and handled quite well.
All four ball joints were bad. All the bushings were too. I did use the shorter length strut rods with the coarse threaded ends.

The last thing to do is to slide in the torsion bars. I have a few bad core plugs to replace though. I’m going to have more room to reach them with the bars out of the way.

 

[Brooks James]

Thank you, Townsend.
I got the socket in a stash of parts I got from a guy years ago.
Today I sandblasted the UCAs after getting the ball joints out. I painted them a semi-gloss black Rustoleum.
The LCAs....I've never pressed bushings out with a press before. I remember reading about how to get the shaft, the bushing then the shell out but today was my first time doing it.
I'll do the right side tomorrow and post pictures but back to the recap:

I found it to be a bit clumsy....balancing the LCA and spacers to press out the shaft first.
The bushing gets pried out with a screwdriver. That is easy.
If you're using poly bushings, you leave the shell of the old bushing in place but I'm installing rubber bushings again. Back in 2001, I fell for the hype of Polyurethane. Better handling, modern feel...This is true with GM cars where the rubber in the bushings is huge. Ours are pretty thin so when the rubber is in good condition, the added stiffness of a poly bushing is minimal but the vibration increases a lot.

I was considering poly as well. But I saw several Mopars that the poly bushing squeaked after the install lube wore out. Plus, I wasn't going to spend $160 on a kit to make it greaseable

 

[Kendog 170]

You may wonder why I’d buy a whole kit when all I really needed was lower ball joints and grease boots. I know, it seems odd but have you tried to find grease boots for ball joints?

I always saved the Boots on my Dart when changing Ball joints and Tie rods if they were still good.

 

[Kern Dog]

Trying to get a ball joint or tie rod end loose without damaging the boot has been a pisser. The method of tapping on each side with opposing hammers sometimes works. I always forget to try a gear puller.
I was at a turning point over the weekend. I had two ways to go: Forge ahead and replace the core plugs in the engine either with the engine in place or by pulling it later OR just finish the front end rebuild and close the book on that.
It made more sense to me to finish the rebuild. I got the torsion bars in and set the ride height.
Now, old fashioned Mopar mechanics will tell us/me that the correct method is to follow the factory service manual where you measure from the suspension to the floor. I don't do it that way. I've never done it that way. Since the 80s, I've raised or lowered maybe 45-50 cars between what I've owned or cars that I've worked on with friends. Remember in the 80s and 90s when a lowered car or truck was a popular thing with young enthusiasts?
I owned a lowered Camaro....

YES, the monochromatic look was popular in the 80s!
Ha ha....Oh the stuff we thought was cool sometimes looks weird a few years later.
Back on point: I take my measurements from the highest point on the wheel openings, sometimes the center or the headlights or side marker lights.
This Duster was set to sit 24 1/2" at the top of the wheel arches. This left a little of the top of the tires visible. For myself, I like the top of the tire to tuck up in the body a bit like so:

The Duster though needs to have appeal to more than just me though since it is a project car that I don't intend to keep.

 

[clementine]

This ball joint splitter can be a way of not damaging boots in the future.

Great documentation Dog!

 

[Kern Dog]

One of those would be great to have, Sir.

With the torsion bars back in and adjusted, the tires are on, the LCA bolts were tightened and the UCA cam bolts were left slightly loose so I can move them during alignment.

Awhile back, I bought this alignment gauge.

It has a magnetic base to stick to the hub.

The outer bubbles are for camber, the inner is for caster.
There are a few ways to use it. for my Charger with 18" aluminum (non magnetic) wheels, I had to hold the gauge against the wheel hub.

I had a thread at FBBO about this method of alignment. A member posted up the idea of a steel plate with a threaded collar to attach to the end of the spindle so I made this:

This works as long as the threads engage enough to make the plate feel snug and as long as the plate clears the hub of the wheel.
For these wheels, I had to remove the cap.

Next was the cotter key and that thin retainer.

Next.....

 

[Kern Dog]

The plate gets threaded on until it bottoms out.

Then the gauge gets stuck on...

You have to "level it" using the bubble on the outer edge.

Next, you look at the outer bubbles to see where the camber is.

Holy crap...I'm at 2 degrees of NEGATIVE camber??
My goal is for 1 degree NEGative camber and as much caster as I can get. The offset UCA bushings as installed will get the most caster possible with stock upper control arms but sometimes the camber can be a variable. Here is the caster number that I got:

6 1/2 degrees of caster? That is great! The problem is, the camber is too negative. By taking some negative camber out, it means losing some of the caster. Remember, I set the front alignment cam OUT and the rear cam IN. If both cams are OUT toward the fender, the camber goes positive. If both go IN, the camber goes negative. Getting the numbers you want can be an exercise in compromise where you settle for what you can get. In the end, I was able to get 1 degree negative camber and 6 degrees of positive caster.
On the right side, I had the opposite problem with camber. I could get just shy of 6 degrees of caster but that was at ZERO camber. Trying to get into negative camber resulted in losing caster.
The fix?

Mopar guru Andy Finkbeiner has those "shims" that get placed between the lower ball joint and steering knuckle (As seen above) I just took some washers I bought and used them like so:

This tilts the bottom of the steering knuckle out by a slight amount. The "shims" from Andy were listed to be 2 degrees and look to be about 3/16" thick. The washers I used were 1/8". I used these in my Charger and (along with QA-1 upper control arms) was able to get 8 degrees of caster and 1 degree of negative camber. I won't get that amount of caster with this car but the camber should come into that range.
More to come...

 

[v8dve]

This is excellent info and tips KD, probably needs to be a "How to..."when finished.

Thank you for taking the time to record this