Ebay Front End Kit Opinions?

The lower ball joints are not that hard to get. $200 each for cars with the Bendix front brakes maybe....but not the rest of us.
 
I can't see any advantage to buying one of these ebay kits. The price is not a whole lot better than buying the parts yourself with the advantage of you knowing where the part came from.
I never found an advantage to any kind of kits. I prefer to mix and match.

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Lower ball joint are indeed difficult to locate and when found can be costly, in TRW and MOOG form...... Your lucky day is to find one for a hundred or less
 
They dont make them....havent for years. There are Chinese made ball joints available, EVERYTHING on the joint is inferior. Side by side you can see the difference
 
polara71 said:
They dont make them....havent for years. There are Chinese made ball joints available, EVERYTHING on the joint is inferior. Side by side you can see the difference
Click to expand...

The ball joints made by Just Suspension are of way better quality then the Chinese crap...IE...the new Moog parts. There was a thread years ago on Moparfins that had cut away pics of the lower ball joints made, and offered by most places, and the JS units. You could clearly see the better design and manufacture of the JS pieces.

Found a similar thread over on Cbodydry dock from 2007....Now you can see the differences, and why the JS pieces are the way to go.

http://cbodydrydock.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.20

Yes the old NOS Moog K7001 and K7003...(think I got those numbers right?) are worth there weight in gold now days. I personally have 2 sets of them...grab them off e-bay years ago.

I am running the PST kit in the wagon. And I know the lower BJ's, and other parts offered by PST in their kit are just repackaged modern moog pieces. And I don't expect great longevity out of them. If I was to do my suspension again I would go all JS, or NOS if I could find them.
 
Thats all correct and I remember the cut away thread from the drydock......... I used the PST kit on one of my 71's and I got about 30,000 miles out of the lowers before they needed to be replaced..... Given what you stated ( where are the PST AND JS pieces manufactured?) and my experience tells me to stay away from any of it except MOOG or TRW's. Even the original Chrysler stuff wasnt as good as the replacement parts
 
In the cutaway thread I posted....it shows JS suspension design is clearly better then the Moog. Moog USED to be a good brand...until they start manufacturing overseas. I don't know where the JS pieces are manufactured...but it's clear to my eyes that they are a far superior product....to at least moog, and probably TRW I'd guess. Since JS is a small outfit, and caters to the restoration car crowd they offer a superior product...for a few more dollar then the cheaper "other" brands.

PST parts are just re-boxed Moog....so that shows you the "quality" your getting. ;)
 
$390 sounds steep, but it has been 18 years since I rebuilt my front end (kit from PST I recall). I rebuilt my 2 A-bodies in the last few years and bought individual parts much cheaper than a kit, only the parts I needed, and the improved parts, but C-body parts are much rarer and costly even if the cars don't command as high prices (a bad combination).
 
thrashingcows said:
Moog USED to be a good brand...until they start manufacturing overseas.
Click to expand...
Brian, on a lot of their parts, Moog offers two kinds, one made in the USA and one made in, of course, China.

Example:
I found a great price on Moog ball joints on ebay. When they arrived, marked on the Moog box was "Made in China".
I returned them and went to Advance, The ball joints had marked on the Moog box "made in the USA".
Same part numbers but the Chinee ones had a suffix added to the US part number.
Tried to save a buck and it bit me on the ***.
 
I found the same with A/C parts at AAP. They have 3 different prices on the receiver/drier. The highest price made in the USA. The mid price made in Mexico/Canada and the dirt cheap price and quality made in China.
 
commando1 said:
Brian, on a lot of their parts, Moog offers two kinds, one made in the USA and one made in, of course, China.

Example:
I found a great price on Moog ball joints on ebay. When they arrived, marked on the Moog box was "Made in China".
I returned them and went to Advance, The ball joints had marked on the Moog box "made in the USA".
Same part numbers but the Chinee ones had a suffix added to the US part number.
Tried to save a buck and it bit me on the ***.
Click to expand...


Thats kinda my point. Best of my knowledge, Moog doesnt make them at all anymore. If I were to buy one it would be a NORS piece of about twenty years of age. Made in the states and built for the long haul
 
But I'm saying Moog DOES still make the original USA version here. I just said I got them at Advance.
 
Not C body lowers for a 1970 which is the year in question since that is what the OP has.
 
How are legislative standards by the way for the "Made in USA" description. Over here you could label a shirt for example "Made in Germany" if you just put on the buttons in this country. Think this could also apply to our parts over here, take the cheaply made housings/ball joints and put them together in country. That's why I always look for NOS first.
 
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