[HO455]

Thank you Joe! I do appreciate your replys. I'm sure I could do a better job of documentation as I start off okay but forget to stop and get photos along the way then suddenly I'm done. Like today's posting.

I got some used upper control arms to rebuild and then replace the existing ones. (Lots of thanks to Chevy Metal in Vancouver WA as he gave me them for free!) The idea being the truck wouldn't be up on jacks in the shop immobile for the two days it would take to clean up, rebuild, and reinstall them. The new ones were pretty clean and already had the ball joints replaced, so no drilling the old rivets out. After stripping the ball joints and bushings off the arms I blasted and painted them.
As a side note. I did not know what spindles the WMB had on it other than they were 1 1/4" discs. After much searching of the forum and other places on the interweb trying to look up the casting numbers to no avail, I ended up recognizing one of the numbers as a casting date. Using that it appeared that they were 1972 spindles although one side was a late year 72. So I got a pair of 72 spindles hoping that both sides were the same. (Not a lot of faith in the PO at this point). So after I removed the old uppers. I cleaned the spindle tapers and test fitted each ball joint in its spindle. I did this by putting a light coat of anti-seize on the ball joint taper and inserting into the spindle taper. Then twist the joint back and forth making sure it is fully seated. Pull the ball joint out carefully so as not to touch the sides of the spindles taper. Then I examined the ball joint and the taper in the spindle looking for evenly distributed anti-seize. A shiny spot would show a high spot and an area with a build up of anti-seize would be a low area. If the joints were the wrong ones I would of had only been touching on one end or the other of the taper not a smooth even layer of anti-seize the full depth of the ball joints taper. Which fortunately for me is what I saw. Sorry no photos but I did have anti-seize all over my hands and I am sure I don't need it all over my tablet. (Anti-seize the gift that keeps on giving! If any of you have worked with pranksters you know what I'm talking about)
After that it was just clean the alignment shims, reinstall them the way they came out and tighten the nuts up to torque. 70 ft lbs if memory serves me for the shafts and the bushing caps to 90 ft lbs. Although I didn't find a spec on the bolts that hold the ball joint on I went with the general spec for a 3/8" NF grade eight bolt of 45 ft lbs. After that i greased them up. Just enough grease until you see the boot start to move. I greased the bushings as I installed them on the bench. Then after torqued the bushings I clamped the shaft in a vice and rotated the arm around the shaft as I greased it to ensure grease got everywhere inside. Then one last shot after installation. After the first hundred miles I will go back and check the torque of everything and put another shot of grease in everything.
I forgot a add a big thank you to lolife99 for his Drum to disc thread. It is most informative on suspension parts and the break down for what years cross over.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=444823