LOL. It's not Dale's fault the car's not back together. It's mine ... sorta. I used a special Howe ball joint housing that allows us to use a much bigger ball joint pin for strength reasons. The factory ones are tiny. Cute ... but tiny.
Anyway ... Howe makes these new lower ball joint housings that fit in 67-69 F-body & '64-'72 A-Body lower control arms ... that fit a much larger, beefier, ball joint stud. I assembled the housings with the correct height stud ... adjusted for zero friction ... and sent them with the total package. When Dale got back from his trip & went to install them ... they slipped right into the LCA ball joint opening with no press fit.
My "WTF" conversation with Howe led to a curious & disappointing answer. Most of the racers running "stock appearing" lower control arms in racing series across America ... are using new stamped LCAs that are foreign made ... that have the BJ hole TOO SMALL. So Howe made this particular ball joint housing smaller ... to fit the imported LCAs. And now ... they don't properly fit accurately made in America LCA's that have the correct lower ball joint size.
Grrrr. So we're giving the import crap priority? Really?
Anyway Greg ... this reminds me of the conversation we were having earlier about new stuff not fitting.
For anyone that cares ...
The factory BJ opening for the AFX LCAs should be 2.000"
Most ball joints for these LCAs are 2.003"-2.005" for a .003"-.005" press fit.
The new bigger Howe BJ housing was 1.984"
It wasn't a big deal to fix it. I just got 2 new new Howe housings (that use the bigger studs) of a larger diameter & turned the base down to 2.005". Shipped them priority to Dale today.
Are these the LBJ's that have the sevicable ball/stud right? Is there a stud spec chart available? Ive been looking but haven't found it.
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
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