so my lower control arm bracket dun teared itself right off the cross member on the 89'. currently trying to determine the logistics of putting the truck in the garage. will post pics in a bit.

how it happened:

i was driving in reverse with the wheel locked full right when the intense load of negotiating a driveway seemingly tore the suspension right off. it made i clunk sound that i had heard a thousand times before (and should have listened to, apparently!) when i started to drive forward it made a whole bunch more racket and i assumed i had just destroyed the cheapo ball joint i installed a little over a year ago. no such luck.

to be fair, i had noticed small cracks on the cross member at the corners of the control arm mount. i should have addressed this earlier.

i fear i will need to remove the engine to repair the cross member.

 

Ouch! That is pretty ugly, good luck with the repair.

 

i would suspect that something had play in it for some time like you said.

good luck with the repair

 

this is also the side that ran with a bad ball joint for quite some time. the ball joint ended up wiping out the upper control arm, and the wheel was cocked in just like it is now. the ball joint never failed completely but it probably put a lot of adverse load on that X member.

 

Wow, that is nasty! I have never seen one do that, next time I'm under mine I'm going to look at that area closely...

I seem to remember you bought that truck from a business that was no longer using it. What did they use it for?

 

Well now, isn't that nice? Your truck just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year.

Mine has that clunk, not sure what it is in there.

 

The "normal" full lock clunk/scrape/pop is due to the suspension flexing while the steering stop is touching the spindle. The metal-on-metal sliding under extreme pressure makes a nasty but not harmful noise. The stops are supposed to be greased so they move smoothly and quietly but I doubt many of them have been greased since they left the factory. Mine aren't - I know why it makes that noise so I don't worry about it.

 

thats a good memory! you are right, i bought them from a storage company that touted: "we move you free!" They were used to tow goose neck moving trailers.

i'm pretty sure what did it in was the bad ball joint it had some time ago. the tilt the wheel had in it would have pulled it exactly the way it is pulled out now.

i think i'm going to replace the rivets with high grade hardware and make a washer plate that will spread the across a larger area of the X member. a couple short weld beads on all four corners and hopefully that does it.

 

It would be a good time to put in a leaf-spring/straight-front-axle set-up.


A neighbor has a 1973 Dodge 2WD DRW that came factory-original with leaf-springs and straight front axle.

He told me that, except for the fact that it has none of the 4x4 pieces, every piece is same as a king-pin 4x4 DANA-60; the axle is even a round tube.


You could even get by with a gutted 4x4 front that was otherwise useless to the 4x4 crowd.

 

Sounds like a decent plan. Try to get "Huck" brand fasteners from a heavy truck shop - they use 'em to bolt truck frames together.

 

now that it's in the car hole the fun the can start. I'm gunna look in to the straight axle stuff for her sister

 

Fastenal has the grade bolts as well if theres one close. Mine makes a noise driving across a rough field, its never done it on the road. I better look at mine as well.

 

Love the color, is that factory?

 

time to do a 4x4 conversion

 

i would love to do a ford or even a 4x4 conversion. However, i don't think i can afford it right now...unless a first gen dana 60 front end somehow fell in my lap........