Change upper and lower ball joints with out removing rotors?

BAD69FURY

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We'll here we go again lol. I recently finished my disc brake convo and finally had the brakes dialed in, they were a son of a gun to get right so I don't want to mess with them. While doing the disc convo I had some new upper and lower ball joints installed supplied from Andersen Restoration. They looked decent but am having doubts if I want to keep them in there. Anyone have success with these A-resto-parts balljoints? Fast forward I was able to buy some new TRW upper and lower ball joints supplied by RARE PARTS which I've heard are much better, or at least have been around longer. Anyhow my dilema is I want to remove the Andersen ball joints and install my TRW's and I do not want to remove the rotors or mess with the calipers since that was finally dialed in. I'm thinking if I jack the front end up and relieve the tension on the torsion bars I can remove one ball joint at a time and replace them while the other one hangs and keeps everthing together. Any thoughts on how to proceed? Has anyone done it this way? I will look over my FSM tommorrow when I dig it up. thanks in advance
 
First off, if you have new ball joints installed, run them until they fail and save the TRW units for a later date. IF the Anderson units are made is the US they are probably of adequate quality. Second, while it is probably possible to remove the ball joints with the rotors attached, there is no good reason to do it that way. You will just make more work for yourself. (You will be fighting the lower ball joint bolts behind the rotors) If you used Mopar calipers, they are a simple two bolt set up that is easy to remove as is the brake rotor. Far easier than trying to work around them.

Dave
 
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Just curious, what was so hard about getting everything "dialed in" when it should have been more "plug 'n play" in orientation? Enough that you don't want to remove the calipers again?
 
Drive the car the way it is. I used PST parts years ago and have had no issues.

Do you want to swap just for peace of mind? I thinks it's more work than necessary, but brakes are easy to R&R.
 
First off, if you have new ball joints installed, run them until they fail and save the TRW units for a later date. IF the Anderson units are made is the US they are probably of adequate quality. Second, while it is probably possible to remove the ball joints with the rotors attached, there is no good reason to do it that way. You will just make more work for yourself. (You will be fighting the lower ball joint bolts behind the rotors) If you used Mopar calipers, they are a simple two bolt set up that is easy to remove as is the brake rotor. Far easier than trying to work around them.

Dave
That’s just it, not sure where there units are made, when I asked them they said there global parts , so not sure it’s anyone’s guess. That’s why the doubt and wanting to change them. But yeah your right would be easier I guess to remove the rotor.
 
Just curious, what was so hard about getting everything "dialed in" when it should have been more "plug 'n play" in orientation? Enough that you don't want to remove the calipers again?

well you would think right, but the first shop that put this stuff on did a good job on installing the spindles, ballpoints, rotors, etc.. all the easy bolt on stuff was fine but brakes weren’t there thing. They didn’t arch the shoes, and they couldn’t get the pedal feel right, they put banjo bolt hoses on which are not correct, we went through a set of offshore new out of the box warped drums which kept grabbing the rear wheels when lugs were torqued down and went through two crappy offshore out of the box proportion valves which both leaked like sieve. To be fair the defect parts was not their fault. The second shop which did get everything right specialized in only classic car brakes. They put on my new drums, turned em, put on better friction material rivited onto the shoes, removed that garbage that was on there, arched etc.. they assembled the front disc brakes much much better and put on the correct hoses direct line in etc… what finally worked for the prop valve was a GM combination valve and that worked lol, I’ll post more detail later.
 
When we upgraded the factory 9.5" rear brakes on my Camaro to (1977 Monte Carlo spec) 11" rear drums, the new drums pulsated a bit as they were stored vertically rather than being laid flat on the shelves. Knowing what was going on, after it was all put together, I drove it that way for a while and THEN had the drums cut after they seasoned a bit. No more issues of that nature.

Not sure how using banjo-bolt hoses will make a big difference or even IF they might be interchanged? GM uses banjo bolts with no issues, as long as you put new copper seal washers with them. FWIW

I've never had any brake shoes arc-cut. Mainly because most of the OEM-level replacement shoes are a bit thicker to compensate for any cutting of the brake drums. But I always drove a bit easier for a few days (which many might not). To me, this tends to disprove the necessity of arcing the shoes . . . especially since FEW shops had the equipment back then. This after having read, many times, about how important it was to have the replacement shoes arced when installed, for best results. BTAIM

Chrysler OEM brake frictions are bonded to the basic shoe assy. Not riveted. GM used riveted frictions with a wide groove down the center. Less active friction material than with the bonded shoes, by observation. Both can work equally well, in most uses. Obviously, as GM used riveted linings, that is less expensive to do, I suspect.

Not sure why the first entity seemed to have a "high CF factor", but it's good that things are better now.

Just some thoughts and experiences,
CBODY67
 
Removing the front rotors has nothing to do with the rear drum brakes. You can remove the calipers and slide off the rotor without too much hassle. I would leave the new ball joints on there. You can always change them down the line.
 
Unless you put the parts on, and the wheels fall in or out, go try them out. If global parts was your concern, why didn't you find that out before hand?
 
Removing the front rotors has nothing to do with the rear drum brakes. You can remove the calipers and slide off the rotor without too much hassle. I would leave the new ball joints on there. You can always change them down the line.
I know your right, it has no tho nothing to do with the rotors, just meant it was the collective experience of it all that just made me not want to mess with them. I’ll put on my big boy pants when I’m ready and just remove the rotors to swap out the joints. Maybe I’ll just leave the Andersen ball joints in and see how they do and swap them out at a later date. To be honest what made me doubt my new ball joints was reading all the other posts Ive read around online how offshore parts are crap, and how only to buy USA made etc.. etc.. etc.. lol Believe me I’d prefer to buy USA made only but I guess I need to be more open that parts are made globally now and hopefully have to trust that they are made to some quality standard. All said when it comes to suspension components I need assurance! Not safe to roll the dice right? But who do you trust, these days big corps want profit over quality maybe lol. Anyhow I think I’m spending too much time working from home, letting my mind think to much, need to get back out there and get my mind busy with more important things ha ha :p:D
 
Unless you put the parts on, and the wheels fall in or out, go try them out. If global parts was your concern, why didn't you find that out before hand?
I bought the parts over a year ago before I read other posts online doubting me otherwise.
 
Drive the car the way it is. I used PST parts years ago and have had no issues.

Do you want to swap just for peace of mind? I thinks it's more work than necessary, but brakes are easy to R&R.
I hear good things about PST parts, glad there working out so far, and yeah just wanted to swap them out for peace of mind.
 
It might not be specifically where the parts are made, it IS important to which SPECS they are built to, which includes the materials used. It all depends upon just how much the re-seller wants to sell them at and at what profit level, even if the parts were Made in the USA. Before there were Chinese parts (in the 1960s), there were parts made here that were better than others, as I recall. "Name brands" to trust and others which were not as good.

The vast majority of former (1950s-1960s) USA Name Brands are now a part of probably TWO conglomerates, by observation. Yet there are some Canadian companies whose websites look interesting with some lesser prices, too. As are others are "North American", too. Some of the Asian brands look really nice, too, as they are OEM over there.

Over here, I determined that there were "OEM Level" parts and "used car lot level" parts. The former can include companies as Wix, Fram, Moog, ACDelco, Motorcraft, and similar. The latter are not really bad parts, but will not always be up to the complete standards of the OEM Level group, by observation, but can give good service under many conditions. Nor is everything in the latter group automatically "junk", either.

As to what many of the auto supply chains and smaller auto supplies feeder chains might sell, if it was really bad, they wouldn't be in business very long. Nobody wants a history of warranty returns to deal with. But it's that non-returning customer that costs them, which they do not know about.

By the same token, just because some big-box source might sell some brand of off-shore part does not automatically mean that the off-shore part is a good one, by observation. Just that it might fill a niche in their line-up at a particular price point where they can make money on it. "Greedy profits"? Not necessarily. What might you do if YOU were in that situation?

There are some off-shore OEM Level brands which I do not hesitate to purchase and use, as I have for a long time. Just better for my needs than a USA brand of similar products. But others that I do not desire to even try and waste my money on. FWIW

The KEY is what I term "OEM Level" parts, no matter what, though. With time, though, I have learned which of the non-OEM Level parts which are good, too. Just as I have also learned that spending for higher-than-OEM Level parts is not always a good upgrade to do, at least for me.

In so many cases, the OEM Level items have already been "fire-tested" for 100K mile durability, or as much durability as the OEMs were willing to pay for to get the car to the end of the assembly line and past any applicable warranties. Which opens the door for others to make something better, if desired, at competitive price points. Even to re-sell quality USA-made NOS parts, as @mobileparts does.

No easy answers, anymore . . .

Just some thoughts,
CBODY67
 
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