The strut bushings get a lot of attention because they are basically the weakest, poorest design element in the AMC front end. Not from a safety/failure point of view, but considering dynamic geometry and long term stability they suck. That last part, will it hold a #@$%%#@!! alignment more than a few months! Upper bushings, ball joints, etc, component positions don't displace very much as the parts wear, and they take decades to wear enough to throw alignment off. Crappy strut bushings compress, the lower ball joint moves towards the back of the car, and inward; toe widens, camber moves towards positive and caster drops. (I suppose the one advantage is safety: Joe Shoppingmall can drive repeatedly into a curb stone at 10mph and not crack a lower A arm.) On Fri, 18 Aug 2006, francis.swygert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > What a time not to have my books with me!! I wouldn't say that the front > ends were in a "state of flux" -- there were two versions of one basic > design. There were two different strut rods and lower arms, and trunnion > designs -- one for the small cars and one for the big. The small cars I've not made the big survey necessary, and I don't have access to the cars, but I know this: Two piece bushings vs. one-piece bushings: after 1964 (65?) they are functionally interchangable. There has been a lot of fiddling by the OEMs and aftermarket on design, so clearly they're either all idiots or they were attempting to address various problems, probably longevity and alignment stability. I assume the latter (until the 1990's when profit-at-any-cost overrode quality concerns and they turned to the former). Anyways the old-style one-piece has an installed steel ring that is supposed to be swaged and spot-welded into the bracket. They are a major PITA to install, and as Frank and I have separately discovered, it apperars that none have been manufactured for DECADES as my NOS set crumbled within a few days (imagine the cost, imagine the fun). That was 5, 10 years ago for me. One piece seems to be the original OEM design; nearly all aftermarket are two-piece. I can see no technical reason for the one-piece. Any of the quality two-piece designs are just fine, are just as or more rugged, and vastly easier to install. No one repros this part as far as I know; good riddance to bad rubbish. 1963-1964 suspensions: non-adjustable strut rod, upper trunnions, lower ball joint. The strut rod is an old-fashioned part; high-quality, forged item, it's tapered, impossible to make adjustable except via Frank's method (cut+weld) whivch I am not skilled enough for. Hence my poly/rubber hybrid hack. 1965, 1966, 1967: no experience, but somewhere in here AMC narrowed the chassis 1". The early 10, 80 chassis mutated into the 01 chassis. The 63 classis is shockingly similar upside down to the 70 hornet. (One of the reasons I love AMC engineering.) 68-72, small car, seems to be another class of suspension mods. 73-up, pretty much all the small cars (01's) are the same; pretty much everything interchanges exactly (spring rates, brakes and details excepted.) Note that from 63 up, (I have zero knowledge of Pacers and Mats I never worked on), all AMC suspension parts interchange or come very close -- little design change. Even trunnion vs. ball joint, the smallest change required was made. Details like built-in steering stops vs. the serrated plate, I consider BFD, since I wrench to drive, not restore. Take 1963 and 1979 (two chassis I have a lot of experience with): You can actually bolt on all of the lower junk from the 79 onto the 63 car if you space the steering box and idler arm inward; later chassis are 1" narrower. The 1963 tie rod ends, pitman arm, steering arms, steering knuckle are identical to later (79 at least) parts -- EXCEPT the tapers are LARGE, vs. SMALL on newer parts. The only difference in the lower ball joint from 1963 to 1979 is the size of the taper. The upper insert, that contains the spring top seat and upper arm pivot bushings, looks like it would interchange 1963 / 1979. Welding involved. The ball joint upper A-arm **almost** fits in the 63! (Too wide if I recall.) If the upper trunnions weren't so damned reliable I'd consider it a worthwhile project. (Mine now have over 300,000 miles on them.) > used a bolt on turn stop, the big cars had the stop made into the ends > of the strut rods. The change occurred in 67 or 68 (I think 68 models -- > this is where my books would come in handy!) -- the strut rod changed to > an adjustable type, and the end that bolted to the lower control arm > changed on the big cars. I think they went to a bolt on stop at this > point also. 63-66 (or 67) should be the same, 67 (or 68) to 69 should be > the same. 70 and later strut rods are straight for the small cars, I > think the big cars still have a curved end to bolt to the lower control > arm. I'm not sure the 70 strut rods are *actually* straight; I think there still is a left and a right, but I could be wrong. The various mostly small changes that happened post-65/pre-70 are the "flux" I was talking about. > I don't know about the strut rod bushings. There does seem to be some > experimentation with the shape of the rubber and position of the washers > after 1970. For the most part non-adjustable strut rod bushings are one > piece, adjustable two piece. But as John Elle indicated in another > message, there is a one piece in the early 70s with the adjustable strut > rod. I wish I had systematic access to all the parts. A full set of parts catalogs would be a start, but I think actual side-by-side comparison of hard parts would reveal that a lot of different-number parts are really microscopic variations on some one part (eg. holes for shocks, anti-roll bars, etc). Those of us wrenching and driving would be happy to have wrong-year parts that work :-) _______________________________________________ AMC-List mailing list AMC-List@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.amc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/amc-list or go to http://www.amc-list.com