What is up with the UCA?

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CudaChris67

CudaChris67

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My dad pulled these UCAs from a 1973 Duster in a boneyard along with the other disk brake conversion goodies for my 1967 Barracuda. These things look odd! Side by side on the bench it looks like one is twisted. Strangely, the metal does not appear to have any damage. Is this how they are, or do I need to go shopping?

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those are off the same car? looks like one was replaced at one time with some other year or model.
 
They both are "twisted", just one more than the other apparently. It could be a factory design since the other metal would probably show distortion (as you note). I have 2 off at home, but from a 1964 so different PN. I'll check if they look identical.

The only force during driving that I can imagine could apply a twisting force would be if the front wheel was pushed back hard, say from hitting a curb or dropping in a hole. Even that wouldn't apply much force at the UCA ball joint. Is the direction of twist consistent with that force?
 
I think there probably is a kink in the metal that we cant see in your pic.
The other arm looks fine to me.
 

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was the duster in the bone yard from a front end wreck? you might have 2 differant year/model uca's.
 
If you actually compared a left, and a right, UCA side by side, you will find that they have an "angle" to them, depending on which side of the vehicle they are installed on.
That's perfectly normal.
I really don't know why the right one in your picture is pretty much flat.
There is no difference in the the UCA between any of the 73-76 A body line of cars.
So one of them being from a different model, or year is out of the question.
The only thing that comes to mind in getting one "flat" like that, is some unknowledgable person tried to press out a ball joint, instead of screwing it out, and it got "tweaked" under tons of pressure in the hydraulic press.
But i don't know. Only a guess.
I just happened to have a set of A body UCA's out in the garage that i took pictures of, for my next round of eBay sales, so here's a front,side by side picture of what they normally look like.
Hope it might be of help to you.
Jim V.

Oh, i forgot to mention, the numbers on your UCA, are the year and day code that they were manufactured.
The first number 4, is the year, and the other other numbers are sequential day of the year they were manufactured.
So your UCA's are off a 74, and were made pretty much close to one another, in the days.
 

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Pretty simply, the flat one is bent.
 
hemi71x said:
If you actually compared a left, and a right, UCA side by side, you will find that they have an "angle" to them, depending on which side of the vehicle they are installed on.
That's perfectly normal.
I really don't know why the right one in your picture is pretty much flat.
There is no difference in the the UCA between any of the 73-76 A body line of cars.
So one of them being from a different model, or year is out of the question.
The only thing that comes to mind in getting one "flat" like that, is some unknowledgable person tried to press out a ball joint, instead of screwing it out, and it got "tweaked" under tons of pressure in the hydraulic press.
But i don't know. Only a guess.
I just happened to have a set of A body UCA's out in the garage that i took pictures of, for my next round of eBay sales, so here's a front,side by side picture of what they normally look like.
Hope it might be of help to you.
Jim V.

Oh, i forgot to mention, the numbers on your UCA, are the year and day code that they were manufactured.
The first number 4, is the year, and the other other numbers are sequential day of the year they were manufactured.
So your UCA's are off a 74, and were made pretty much close to one another, in the days.
Click to expand...

thanks for the info, pic and code decryption.

bending her back is not a good idea...time to go shopping
 
As luck would have it, I was just in the basement rounding up some fishing gear and stumbled over the suspension pile ( really is a mess down there ). The arms I looked over came of the 73 Valiant I parted out last fall. These arms are identical to what you have pictured. One has a just a slight angle to the ball joint hole and the other one looks wrecked in comparison. :)
Sorry I was so wrong in my earlier post
 
RedFish said:
As luck would have it, I was just in the basement rounding up some fishing gear and stumbled over the suspension pile ( really is a mess down there ). The arms I looked over came of the 73 Valiant I parted out last fall. These arms are identical to what you have pictured. One has a just a slight angle to the ball joint hole and the other one looks wrecked in comparison. :)
Sorry I was so wrong in my earlier post
Click to expand...

hmm back to square one...
 
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