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Re: Ball Joint info

From: Mike Patterson
Email: mchr@theriver.com
Date: February 22, 2001

Comments

As you have found out by now, Screw in Chrysler Ball Joints come in three basic sizes, and nobody lists/makes a joint with the medium sized body and large stud. (I pulled my hair out for a couple of weeks a several years ago finding that out, I think I looked at every ball joint ever offered for a chrysler product). I have made the larger 70s C Body brakes work on two medium ball joint cars however (57 Dodge and 61 Chrysler wagon). The process involved modifying the lower ball joint hole in the spindle. I cut the old lower ball joint mount off the discarded drum brake spindle, Cut the stud off the old ball joint and put that thru the cut off piece to have a shaft I could chuck in a lath and had a machine shop turn it down to approximatly 1". I then had the hole in the spindle milled for a .002-.003 interference fit. (The hole was not milled all the way thru, just the width of the turned down piece.) The spacer was was put in the freezer and the spindle slightly warmed and then pressed together, and two small tack welds were added.

Having gone thru this, and also doing a couple of late fifties Mopars with the smaller Aspen/Volare Disk brakes. I would recommed either staying with the smaller Disk set up, or going with the AAJ kit. The cost of the machine work was approximatly $150, which as I recall is about the cost of the brackets for the AAJ kit.

One other thing I found out the hard way was not to use the Cordoba set up (large Brakes, medium ball joints). The steering arms are to short and the steering ratio becomes way to quick.

Hope this helps. Mike

 


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