Re: [Amc-list] Trunion Front End Parts.

[farna@xxxxxxx]

Add at least one more trunnion variant to your list. The 50-55 Nash Rambler used a different trunnion design than the 58-63 American. It looks sort of like two tubes welded in a cross pattern, one on top of the other. The horizontal tube is to the outside, vertical to the inside. I haven't looked, but I beleive the big car trunnions are the same as 52-57 Nash/Hudson big cars. If not, add another design. 

The rubber bushed trunnions were used on American, AMX, Javelin from 64-69. In 1970 everything switched to the new design. 


-----------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 09:47:41 -0700
From: Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>

Frank reminded me that 64-up trunnions are the ones everyone's learned
to hate...

There are three+variant different trunnion systems used by AMC 62-up (I
dont know nuthin about 61-earlier).

* Big car trunnions (upper, ball joint lower). Weird, but very reliable
and last forever. These are the ones I wrote up on my web page. They
lasted up til I don't know what model year. A fine system. Grease it
annually. Mine are 350K+ miles old. Lower ball joint replaced probably
two or three times.

* Little car trunnions, early. This is the one I'm battling now. 1963 is
the last year for it. Lower trunnion OK if it's lubed at all; upper
trunnion is a piece of crap no matter how you look at it. I'll state
flatly that it's a bad design, even considering car life < 10 years.
Replacement parts are disappearing, and currently $360 EACH from
Galvin's, rebuilt.

  **  There's a TYPE 2 variant little car, early, for the through-63
lower trunnion that replaces the vertical threaded part with a plain
bearing and castle nut. Probably slightly more desirable than the older
one, but even annual grease makes the original fine. Apparently if you
NEVER lube the bottom trunnion, the trunnion threads grind away and the
joint pops apart! Oops!

* Then there's the hated 64-up little car trunnion. The lower end is
fine, single arm plus ball joint, but the upper joint is a simplified,
cheapified rubber-bushed toy joint that must get TREMENDOUSLY RATTLEY
when the rubber wears out. There's a poly replacement that may make it
just fine, but since if you have one it already pisses you off, you
wanna break up with it and never get a phone call from it again.


Since I had all my pile of parts hot-tanked and media blasted they will
be very photogenic, and I'll take a lot of photos of the assembly
process. I will try to drill out the busted trunnion bolt but I'm
leaning towards putting the big car upper trunnion in there. I hate
really bad designs hanging over my head for future maintenance problems.



--
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Motors Cars" 
Magazine (AMC)
For all AMC enthusiasts
http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html
(free download available!)
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