Hi all...
As I was researching for a front end re-build here, I realized a lot of people had similar if not the same questions.
1st off, a baseline of my car. I love to drive her, but a lot of times freeway trips were white knuckled due to the "drift" or lack of feel from the steering. I went ahead and replaced the power steering with a stock manual box (the pump leaked like crazy even with new hoses, thought I would get 2 problems at once) and the pitman arm.
Better, but still not good. I continued to try to figure where I was having my problem, and even the front strut rod began to squeak all the time.The rubber stops and bumpers were all gone, so I figured a lot of the rubber in the rest was just the same.
OK - I knew it was bad - driving to Carlisle - working on a time table, and unfortunately a budget.
What I learned - If you think it's bad, and it looks bad, it's probably twice as bad. NOBODY has an upper ball joint socket in northern Ohio to buy or loan. I wish I had at least 2 more weeks time in order to clean and repaint things more the way I wanted. And finaly, I wish I had gone with offset upper ball joint.
These things I learned because it was my 1st front end rebuild. It has always been about the go, but steering is realy important.
I ended up buying the PST super poly kit, and for just over 400 was an investment, but I figured with it covering pretty much everything I should be OK.
1st, shipping was fast and free and the salespeople and tech guys were VERY friendly and helpful.
2nd, a box showed up on my porch with parts, reciept and a catalog, but no "direction" or even in the case of the tie-rods a way to identify inner or outer. A quick call to the tech guys yielded a fast and friendly answer for the tie-rods, and due to my cruising their web site found 2 nice step by step articles on a couple of Mopar mags doin a rebuild.
But if you didn't know they were there, you kind of would be in the dark (for 1st timers anyway).
After cleaning, painting and sorting through the kit I was ready to re-install. The lower control arm's original bushing was gone from the driver side, 1 of the main reasons I was having trouble. The rubber in the UCA also was bad, but there.
The rebuild was going VERY smoothly till I needed to tighten the upper ball joints. I am not at all proud of how I got them in there. There in, I'll leave it at that.
I met a fellow Mopar fan who works for a shop and was able to do the allignment for me. He not only did a fantastic job, but let me watch, and I was able to see 1st hand how and why things worked the way they did, and why I wanted more caster and camber. I was told without something offset, that they were ment to be set at zero, and not at more driver friendly settings. We set for zero, having to take a learning experience from this.
Now that it's in, night and day.
Car handles good, is acctualy quieter up front, and rides much nicer.
It was a good experience, and if anyone had any questions, I'd like to answer them.
Hope this helps anyone with any possible questions!
