" From: Frank Swygert <farna@xxxxxxx> " " Even if the spring tower isn't 100% identical on the 70+ " Javelin/Hornet as the 64-69 American/Javelin/AMX, the "upgrade" to 70 " style suspension can still be done with a bit of careful cutting and " welding. The main difference is the location of the upper a-arm mounts " on the body. The mounts are straight across on the older cars, the " upper arm is angled toward the back on the newer ones to give some " "anti-dive" effect when braking hard. For normal drivers it's not " enough of an improvement to be worth all the trouble, and certainly " takes more time and money than rebuilding the original suspension. " Maybe for a road racer though. parts availability would be an attractive motivation for a daily driver. and if your front end already needs extensive rebuilding, converting might not cost much more, or even less. " I'm not sure if the upper arm mounting locations are the same distance " apart on the old and new models or not. If they are, and the A-arm is " about the same length as the older models, it wouldn't be hard to " replace the upper trunnion with a ball joint -- just replace the upper " arm, steering knuckle, and spring. The old model shock can be " retained, no need to put a shock inside the spring. The spring rates " are VERY different due to the location of the spring. On the old cars " it's directly above the steering knuckle, on the newer ones it's moved " about 3-4" inward. The inward location needs a higher spring rate " (stronger spring) to give the same feel as the further out location. " Location had to be changed to clear the ball joint. The angle of the " spring should be okay in the old style towers, but I haven't tried " this -- it's all theoretical until someone does! I need a Hornet or " Gremlin parts car to experiment with... or Javelin... the a-arm and shock mounts are on the spring tower pressing. if you pop-'n-swap this whole panel you get everything. as far as i could tell from quickly scanning a crash book at a car show vendor's booth, the '68-9 spring tower pressing is shared across americans, javelins, and amxes, and on the '69-'70 amx inner fender -only- the spring tower pressing changed. so the balljoint panel -should- fit '64-9 americans. change this panel and the entire balljoint 'knee assembly' should bolt into place. i did not check to see if the '70 amx spring tower pressing was the same as hornets etc. ________________________________________________________________________ Andrew Hay the genius nature internet rambler is to see what all have seen adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and think what none thought _______________________________________________ Amc-list mailing list Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://splatter.wps.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/amc-list