Last weekend I put lbp disc on the front of my 65 valiant. I was replacing 9" drums. Everything is bolted together but now there is a huge amount of toe out on both sides. Is this to be expected? Do I just adjust the tie rods to a more or less straight ahead for the drive to the alignment rack (17 miles) or are they the wrong lbj. The # on the box was k781 and k783 the # on the arms was 7181/7180. Are these the right parts. I got the lbj from the local carquest and generally they are good at getting the right parts but I haven't even been able to drive the car yet because of the insane toe. In case anyone wants to know the spindles are 73 ebody and uca's are from bill reilly.

I suspect the tie rods end up needing to be longer when you do the swap. If the LBJs bolt to your spindles, they are probably correct, but you'll have to check part numbers (try rockauto.com). I've always roughly set the toe by eye before driving to get alignment done.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Rockauto shows the same #s as what are on the box, it still leaves me wondering why whats in the box wouldn't have the same #. I figured someone out there had done this before and would remember having to change toe dramatically.

The LBJs and spindles look totally different in the drum and disc cases. If you look at your old 9" drum setup, you may be able to eyeball the difference in tie rod length needed.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I put small bolt pattern k&h discs on my 61 - changed the entire front
end - I expected to have to adjust it all. For a ballpark I put a strip of
2 inch masking tape on the tread around the circumference of the tires.
Held a felt pen to the tape - spun the tire. then using a carpenter square
to get the same distance up from the floor measured between the lines
at the two fronts and then two rears - adjusted the tie rods until front
and rear measurements were equal. That is a ballpark adjustment.
When I get my engine back in the car I will carefully drive it to the alignment shop to get it right.

I eyeballed the toe setting went for a drive. I could feel the car not wanting to go lots of drag. I ended up using a 14 foot 2X4 as a straightedge between the front and rear tires. I had eyeballed it about a 1.5 inches of toe in. I straightened it out and drove to the alignment rack. When I got it on the rack the machine told me it was unable to properly read the car because there was more than 2 degrees of negative toe. So I had to set toe reset the machine and start again. All in all it wasn't that bad a job took about a hour 45 minutes to do. The only complaint I really have is that the uca bushings are squeaky. They are poly bushings and didn't come with lube so I kinda expected a little noise. With the new arms and bj's the steering is much stiffer the brake pedal is much softer than I like, but I can address that later. I'm starting to think it's time to add a sway bar and faster steering.