Front end rebuild and brake lines 72 c10

[Michael Brownlee]

I'm looking for the beSt place to get the parts to rebuild my front end and brake lines

[chevytruckguy70]

I'd suggest somewhere like Rockauto, Napa, Orielly's etc instead of the magazines. Some of the items in the magazines are cheap. While rebuilding mine it became apparent that there would be items bought that were incorrect so being able to return it to a local store was worth a little more in cost, to me anyway. Plus you are able to take your old part in for comparison. Just my two cents.

[LongBox]

Just to add to the comments by Chevytruckguy70, front end and brake parts are safety critical, so this is where you want to be sure of the quality going in. Also, it's messy work, so you do not want to do it twice.

[LEEVON]

I don't want to complicate matters for you, but I rebuilt the front end on my '71 two years ago and was very surprised at parts availability. When I did it 20 years ago it was no issue, everybody had what I needed. But I own a shop and have multiple vendor accounts, and still this time it took me a couple of weeks to get all of the parts correct, and no vendor (O'Reilly, Napa, Autozone or Bumper to Bumper) had everything I needed. Much of it was really old stock, or boxed incorrectly or cataloged wrong. I was absolutely surprised at how hard it was to get everything I needed. For example, a left and right ball joint of the same p/n and supposedly MOOG would be completely different. One good and one crap. One with a grease zerk and one without. Same with the control arm shafts, several came the wrong size. Same with bushings, idler arms etc. And I order parts every day all day. They're just not stocking this stuff like they used to. We did a full front and power rear drum brake job on a '70 C10 recently and same story, sourced parts from three or four different vendors to find the quality I wanted. O'Reilly's is selling this stuff for much higher prices as "restoration parts" now.

I still can't recommend the catalog vendors like LMC though because you have no way of knowing what you're getting and the prices are high but it sure does make a complete "kit" seem like a good idea. I ended up with a combo of quality parts from all of these vendors and Rockauto.com. Just took time and patience. What parts store do you have access to?