Hello I am doing the disc brake upgrade. I have complete spindles from a 1973 dart I still need upper arms.
should I buy new remanufactured arms with no name ball joints or spend 200$ on a set from a dart that I could buy moog joints for thanks

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1963 Plymouth Valiant Wagon

Another thought: You can get a set of tubular UCAs from Reillymotorsports.com or firmfeel.com for $350-400, which would be about the same as buying old $200 that need BJs and having to install new ones. I don't know about the reman ones with no name BJs. The last set of lower BJs I installed from Moog were junk like everyone else's... $200 is pretty salty for a used set of UCA w/o BJs.

Best of luck,

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

The big problem with some tubular upper control arms is their inability to accept a good tight seal to dust boot. I found that my pair needs grease every 800 to 1000 miles of dry sunny driving; it's a PIA. Let that joint get too dry, and it will become stiff and possibly cause one of the two arms attached to ring housing ball joint to fail at or adjacent to ring from excessive torque. If in the market for such a device look for well placed gusseting around ball joint ring to arm ends, and some sort of wider flange for dust boot to seal to.


The other problem I had with these arms (CAP) was every time I jacked the front end up the dust boot would be split because of poor design of arm missing bump stop; fix was to install LCA wedge in place of round upper stop.

That said, since 08 when I installed my set of CAP arms (no longer being made, CAP was bought out), there is now a much larger selection from different manufactures of these arms on the market; shop carefully my friend.

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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

Agreed. These tubulars are not ideal either. CAP (now through Mancini and others?) is not a good brand. I have some of their stuff on mine and it is not apparently as well made as firmfeel or reilly. No idea on dust boot issue on the others, though.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I like the rms tubular upper arms . Any thaughts on the hiem joints for street use ?

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1963 Plymouth Valiant Wagon

Well, I thought they would be OK on wear for a while, but I believe the ones I have been running on the 64 Dart are starting to make clicking noise, indicating some wear. I have maybe 10k street miles on those parts. I have done no measurements to verify wear, but I am now leery about long term durability. Depends on how much you drive your car and in what conditions. Rubber is the most durable and has small enough deflection to give great handling. I always use the MOOG problem solver offset bushings in the stock arms, and I wonder if the std MOOGs would fit into an aftermarket arm? The key for poly is that it needs to slide and not twist. If it twists, it usually shreds...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Planning on the rms with hiems talked to them today very nice looking forward to ordering them in two weeks ....

If I need to replace hiems every few years that's ok ...

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1963 Plymouth Valiant Wagon

Yep, I don't think many of us are driving these cars 10-20k/yr in mixed/crap weather...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I still like the RMS adjustable arms a lot ...
But I was looking at the firm feel arms non adjustable .. Thinking firm feels would be more comfortable ?? Poly bushings could still feel solid ..

Do you think with the rake from the super stock rear leaf springs that the adjustable arm would be better or the non adjustable has 3 degrees built in ?

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1963 Plymouth Valiant Wagon

They will feel about the same, heim joint or Poly bushings. Durability is really the (unknown) question.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Just keep in mind that heim joints put a lot of shock into the rest of the surrounding chassis metal. If you are on smooth streets all the time, then likely there will be no long term problems. If your driving is on any rough roads, there is a problem of fracturing the joint or fatiguing the surrounding metal. I've been in rallying for several decades and rubber is used far more than anything for durability and not damaging the surrounding chassis; I built some adjustable trailing arms but put rubber in the non-adjustble end for shock absorption for that reason.

So look at how you use this first.