I'm doing the front disk brake conversion on my '64 Dart. I've already picked up the spindles, rotors, calipers, etc. from an M-body at a local junkyard. Everything was in great condition, even the rotors; I got lucky and found a New Yorker that Grandma apparently took really good care of.

Now I just need upper control arms. There's very little chance of finding a late A-body locally, so I'm looking on http://www.car-part.com. I just want to make absolutely sure of what I need before I buy something. From searching old posts on here, I've gathered that the UCA from any '73-76 A-body will work; they all have the large ball joints in that year range, regardless of disk or drum. Is this correct?

I guess it's also worth asking whether the aftermarket tubular UCAs like these would be worth the extra money for my application. I am setting the car up for road racing, so I would need more camber than a street car. I imagine that stock UCAs with those offset MOOG bushings would be sufficient, but I'd like to know if anyone has similar experience with that setup. Suspension geometry is not my strong suit.

_________________
Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

One problem with rebuilding upper control arms is pulled/stripped ball joint threads. When I put disc brakes and large upper ball joints in my Barracuda I torched out the small ball joints and welded in sleeves for the larger ball joints. I know most of us aren't equipped for that so good aftermarket upper control arms like those from Firm Feel may be your best bet. The control arms from Firm Feel are powder coated and the same price as the powder coated arms from Reilly, but you get bump stops from FF.

_________________
Joshua

Well, that makes buying them sight-unseen a bit of a crap shoot.

_________________
Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

I just re-read your post again. You torched out the original small ball joint threads and welded in sleeves for the large ball joints. So I guess the ball joint size is the only difference between early and late A-body UCAs? No other geometry differences?

I'm a decent welder and have access to a TIG set, so I might actually give that a shot. I'd just be concerned about getting the sleeves aligned properly, but it's no great loss if I scrap the old UCAs. Where did you get the sleeves to fit the large ball joints?

_________________
Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

Yes, the ball joint size is the only difference I could find. Be careful when you hit the oxygen on the torch. I made a nice fire ball from the boiling grease vapors.

Alignment is not that critical. It's a ball joint after all.

Sleeves for $8/ea. Ball joints for $13/ea.

http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Steel-Bal ... ,2126.html

http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Speedway- ... 38296.html

_________________
Joshua

Good info. Thanks Josh!

_________________
Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

Haha, good point. Thanks for the info. I'll definitely be trying this.

_________________
Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

SpaceFrank, Some 73-76 A bodies still had both 9'' and 10'' drum brakes.
When looking for A-arms make sure they are for Disc Brakes. I have seen 9''drums on 75 Darts and a few months ago a 74 Dart at pic-a-part with 10'' drums. 10'' may be the same.Someone chime in that knows for sure.

Starting in that model year mopar was bean counting hard so the 1973-1976 A-body UCA and LCA for the 10" drum and disc brakes are the same...(along with the brake metering block up to about 1975). This same reason is why these are getting hard to find, since the same applies to the 1970-1974 E-body guys who want cheap, easy to install, and effective disc brakes.

So for a 10" drum guy, he can just pull the drum, spindle and hose....bolt the spindle, discs, caliper and hose back on and almost be ready to go with a new disc brake master cylinder and some brake bleeding (since most mechanics don't know the difference, I've seen a lot of 1973-1976 A-bodys with drums have a disc brake master cylinder...not so sure that the front brakes were effective after that...

-D.Idiot

Thanks DI !

I've always wanted to do the weld-in balljoint sleeves to get more camber/caster - cut the holes out inside of the existing balljoints. One of these days...

Yeah, I didn't even think of this. I'm already planning to use Moog K7103 offset bushings front and back for negative camber, but I'm not sure how much I'll get.

_________________
Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing