Went to parts house and looked at specs of our top b/joint, and looked through the stack comparing joints, looking for a long stemmed beauty to effective raise the joint height, same as spindle welding....and found what I vaguely remember someone saying has 4 mounting bolts on a similar flange with about an extra 1/2 inch in stem height, but with Norval's saying we need 1.5 inches in height, that's only 1/3 of the way there.....

I also recall someone mentioning ball joint extenders....I presume they fit over the stock joint stem and bolt to the top of the spindle......are the safe for the street?? and if not, why not?? and who has them/how much???

GENE

 

you must mean the adjustable ball joint, it's sold by coleman (and others) but it uses the 4 bolt GM mini ball joint pattern. Also, the sideways travel of the stem is limited to a much smaller angle than the stock ones, limiting total suspension travel.

 

Gene: If memory serves me correctly, I think the taller ball joint is from late70's to early 80's GM A-body cars (Malibu, El Camino, Cutlass, Ragal, Grand Prix. It is a 4 bolt pattern that would require redrilleng the a-arm. I also think it may require a change in taper on the spindle.

A 1/2 increase would help. Not as much as 1 1/2" but anything is better than nothing.

Coleman makes extended ball joints. Thay are great on race cars but I do NOT recommend them for the street. The tall design makes then seceptable to bending which is OK on a race car that gets inspected and the alignment set every week but would be very high maintance on a street car.

Pete

 

Has anybody ever tried taking an older A body suspension from say the 80s and putting it under our cars??? upper and lower A arms??? I know a trick from Global West was using the late say Caddy spindle in the '70 goat I had....taller, and dropped the car an inch or so...as I recall, been a while...

so maybe just change all the joints around, lower and upper?? along with the '80 B body spindles???

GENE

 

Sounds interesting...

Wondering if we couldnt chop the frame at the firewall and bolt something else on?

The big deal in my opinion is just finding something that works that requires the least amount of jury rigging to use :cheers:

 

Gene they do make ball joint extenders, They are a 2 inch block that bolts between the ball joint and the spindle. The block has a taper in the top for the stock ball joint stem and a 5/8th threaded hole in the bottom for a bolt to pass through the existing spindle taper and bolts into the bottom of the block.
They had good reports in the magazines but poor reports from more knowledgeable steering guys.

Twin Turbo is right the range of motion is less then stock so a suspension moving through 7 inches of travel would cause the extended ball joint to run into bind. I ran mine for a summer but went back to stock after installing the extended spindles.
Like Pete said they are not for long term street driving. I do go through my car almost weekly and often run an alignment check to make sure things are still ok.
At least once a month I am under the car carefully going through everything.
While hiem joints are not recommended for everyday driving I have at least 16 on my car.

 

Gene extended spindles have their own problems. The add alot of caster, alot of positive camber which is not good and screw up the bump steer.
I ended up with 5 degrees positive caster with stock cross shafts which is good but 2 degrees positive camber which is not.
I had to relocate the ball joint in the a arm .
For bump I had to add almost 2 inches to the steering arm.
It involved almost a month to set up the front end correctly, know what I want, having the equipment and welding facilities to do it. It is not easy.
Also no one should be redesigning the front end with out proper inhouse equiment for alignment. If I had slapped the extended spindle in then run to the alignment shop the guy would never be able to get within specs, never and it would be back and forth try to modify and realign.
This needs to be done in the shop so things can be modified to come up with proper specs.
I had to add almost 2 inches to the steering arm to acheive my zero pum.
Without welding equipment, some lathe work, a caste camber gage, some form of toe gage and bump steer gage no one should attemp to heavily change their front end.
I know this from about 4 months of doing mine and having all the equipment and know how.
I have arrived where I ment to go so now I will move on to other things.
Good luck Gene.


[Modified by norvalwilhelm, 4:07 PM 2/10/2004]

 

OK, I guess I will call it quits unless I get enthusiastic again...maybe next year..... :D

So I guess I will be happy with finally installing the VBP frame stiffiner thingy I have....only been looking at it since B4 Thanksgiving...why hurry NOW???

gotta take the entire rad support out and move the fan/shroud install, and then have more fun moving the power steering reservoir....I have an '87 vette type serp drive so therefore an external tank on the frame cross support, of COURSE directly in the way of the support position....can't win...

GENE