After rebuilding my 65 Barracuda's front suspension with a Just Suspensions kit for my slider brake upgrade, I noticed now that my car has definite drift to the right and a definite pull to the right on braking. The inside shoulders of my front tires are wearing, with the left front tire worse than my right. There are less than 4000 miles on my newly rebuilt front suspension.

I took the car back to the alignment shop and the mechanic told me that my lower ball joints were worn out and that my right strut rod nut (at the control arm) was loose. I could see movement in my ball joints when he used a lever under my tires. The loose strut rod explains the clunk I heard when braking.

I bought a pair of Moog LBJs and was going to install them yesterday but thought I would double check the movement on my ball joints. With a pry bar, I could get some sideways movement in the right ball joint but very little (indiscernible) up & down movement. The FSM allows for 0.070" of axial movement before requiring LBJ replacement.

Since my strut rod nut was loose, I thought I might as well snug up the the other nuts in the front suspension. The suspension kit included new b-body style strut bushings where there are 2 rubber parts and a sleeve instead of the 1-piece bushing that I had in it previously. Although the '65 manual calls for the strut bushing to be tightened on the ground, I tightened them to 40 ft-lbs in the air. My '75 FSM calls for 52 ft-lbs for the strut bushings.

To jack the car up, I had to tighten-up my torsion bars a bit to be able to get jack more easily under the cross-member. Although not very scientific, a level on my grill showed that the right side was a bit low. I gave the right side a bit more adjustment than the left.

After just torquing the nuts, a test drive showed that I now just had a very slight drift to the right and the brake-pull had completely disappeared.

Questions:

• Is any sideways movement allowable in the lower ball joints if there is virtually no movement up & down?
• Any advice about correctly torquing the front strut rod bushings?
• Is Loctite recommended for any suspension components?

If that ball joint is moving at all, you will feel car tend to pull when crossing cracks in pavement running parallel with direction of travel, and when driving over other imperfections on road surface. Sloppy lower ball joints will cause tire wear on edge of tread. I suspect that the loose strut rod was causing excessive bump steer (ever changing toe while under way) in addition to lower ball joint’s contribution to tire destruction. Kind of a two for one deal….

I have heard a few guys carping that ball joints, and tie rod ends on new Ram trucks in recent years aren’t lasting more than 10,000 miles, for what it's worth. I recently replaced Dart's and Nytro's lower ball joints with Raybestos pro after viewing how they are manufactured differently from the competition. Time will tell if these ball joints are any good.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

In the olden days, the trick was to put your car up on lift and then use a pry bar to move the lower ball joints around, and claim them needed to be replaced.

Some movement is normal, but that goes away when the weight of the car is on them. If they were really bad, you would follow all of the cracks and ruts in the road. With only 4000 miles on them, I doubt they are bad.

I would not expect my ball joints to have much play once the weight of the car was on it. However, I wasn't expecting these ball joints to show any play at all so soon.

I would bet the strut rod was the problem. Either nylox nut it, or put a cotter pin in if there's a hole in the SR, or double nut it. Hard to discern a torque on these things. I tighten mine by feel and look for slight bulging of the bushing.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

The front nuts (strut bushings) were still tight so I don't think I need to lock them into place. If the rear nuts get loose again, I'll clean off the anti-seize and use Loctite instead.

When I tightened everything up last year, I mistakenly thought that the strut rod bushings were tightened down to where the nut reached the end of its travel. I thought this would locate LCA in its design position. The bushings were too stiff to allow this so I stopped when it was as tight as I could make it.

This time, after tightening the strut rod nut at the control arms, I thought I would follow the manual for the bushings. Since I had a heck of a time breaking the front nuts loose originally, I used anti-seize on the threads to avoid this problem next time. Using a click-type torque wrench, I torqued the front nuts to 40 ft-lbs, which should be a a bit tighter than if they were only oiled.

Since I backed-off on the strut bushing torque, I think it might be even more of challenge to get more positive (less negative in my case) caster. Without offset UCA bushings, it was impossible for me to get positive caster and negative camber unless the LCAs were riding on their bumpers.

Offset UCA bushings by Moog...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988