Front Suspension
 

So my lower ball joints and upper a-arm bushing (and shafts) are shot.
How hard is it to replace these?
How do I replace these? Good tips / directions appreciated.
What else is cheap that I should consider doing while I am down there?

1972 c-10 lwb 350.

Todd

I just went through this as I was installing my ECE drop spindals....figured I change out the upper and lower ball joints and control arms. While I had it apart I painted everything, installed drop coils and covered the caliper with heat temp red paint. Be sure to get TRW or MOOG parts. They are available at NAPA or ADVANCE auto. Here is the results:

I get all of my tie rods, ball joints, etc. at Napa- Napa Chassis Parts in particular. I think they are trw (or maybe Moog). Good parts, if you put them next to the stockers or Autozone specials, they look a lot beefier and have held up VERY well.

Have a drill and some good metal drilling bits (or a grinder) handy to pop out the factory rivits. You can buy a ball joint seperator tool that costs like $15 and basically wedges between the ball joint and the control arm. You then hammer the wedge in, and it seperates the assy. Works like a champ.

I would compress and get the spring out of there first too. I have taken off upper ball joints with the spring in place (to aid in seperation), and the seperation was easy but pretty violent and could be dangerous if not careful.

Somebody said that I would need to go to a shop to get the bushings "pressed on." What is the truth behind this?
What kind of tools do I need to do this myself.
Cordless drill and air tools I have. I also have jackstands and a sawsall.
I don't have a lot of money, (if I did, I would just pay the $500 and let the shop do the work) so I can't afford too many upgrades. I already have 2 inch drop springs, so that will be nice.
How much do you figure this will cost me. Rough guesstimation if you could.
Todd

bushings are screw in style not press in's...you still might want to have a front end shop put them in for you though..so they can center them correctly etc.

that is my plan anyway..take the a-arms to a front end shop and take the new bushings/ctrl arm shafts and have them install them.

the lower ball joint needs to be pressed in also (local machine shop, front end shop, or a ball joint tool if you got one)

i just bought all my front end parts from Summitracing (all Moog stuff)
Upper and lower shaft/bushing kits, upper and lower ball joints, inner and outer tie rods, idler arm, and pitman arm....and it cost me around $470 for all that stuff.

upper ball joints were $30 ea.
Lowers were $30 ea.
Lower Ctrl arm kits/w bushings $ 48 ea.
Upper Ctrl arm kits/w bushings $ 36 ea.
=$288 (cheapest I found for MOOG parts anyway - the only local shop that carried MOOG wanted like double that for some reason) and summit has free shipping. don't forget i had the other parts in there too. and i bought ball joints for a 73+ and ctrl arms for a '69 and tie rods/idler/pitman for a 73+ so prices may vary but probably not too much.

you can buy front end rebuild kits from PST and some places for cheaper but i don't know what parts they use (Taiwan?? China??)

I would replace the upper and lower B.Joints, and the upper and Lower Ctrl Arm shafts...if one set is gone the other will probably not be far behind it.
i would personally replace all the steering components too...just for peace of mine and knowing that it is all new and done at the same time. but if you don't have the money...do what you can do

Quote for a shop to do both sides...Upper and lower, control arms and ball joints was near $2000.00....better do it yourself. And then it comes to...should I replace the tie rods???? What the heck....you are already there!!!

I found a front end rebuild kit on ECE for $525. It says it is for "800 series power steering." I have never heard it called that before. My truck does have power steering, so would this be correct?
Looks like a pretty good deal for the money. I think I'll go with this.

Todd

Arkracing posted up above that he bought all of that stuff for cheaper through Summit and free shipping too. Don't underestimate shipping charges on all those heavy parts.

Summit
 

Yeh ECE will charge you shipping.

call up summit and get all the right part numbers, they should have everything in stock you should see it in 2-3 days (unlike ECE) and you only have to pay an $8.95 handleing fee......

you can actually go to federal mogul's website and look up all the part numbers that you need.

Upper shafts: PN# K6098
Lower shafts: PN# K6147

SummitRacing will have a prefix in front of them like "MOG-K6147"

The ball joints and tie rods and stuff you'll have to look up cause as i said before i bought stuff for a '73+ truck but Summit has all the parts for your truck
AND NO SHIPPING - my box of stuff from them was 41lbs that was for everything except the lower shafts..so add another 10-15 for those..and figure what ECE will charge on shipping

A little more work but you could save a good chunk of change

When I did the front end on the '72, besides the standard tools, it took a torch to heat things up to get them apart, and the help of a 4lb hammer. going back together was realatively easy. Driving it to the alignment shop sucked! The work took a long day to complete. If I hadn't had a buddies lift to put the truck up on, it would have taken longer I'm sure.

What is a good manual that would tell me step by step how to do this... fix?

Wow, 3 threads about front suspension work. I just got back from the alignment shop today! My new parts had decent directions, torque values and figures to go by. I replaced everything. Have a big breaker bar handy too. You will need a torque wrench that will go to at least 100 ft lbs too. Don't try to force the caps on the control arms. You will have to figure out the technique to get both the shaft and control arm threads to start at the same time. Just take your time and you can get the same results ChevyDude got. Mine is not as pretty, I used black and silver and painted my brake caliper red.