At 06:29 PM 8/4/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Folks,
> I have replaced upper and lower ball joints many times over the
>years. The price of the replacement ball joints keeps going up and I
>am not so sure they were very good to start with. Has any one out
>there found an alternative upper and lower ball joint that will fit the
>taper of the Tiger spindles? Modification of the A arms to mount the
>alternative ball joints is assumed to be required.
>
Jim
I've developed a system for the lower ball joints that uses some race car
hardware welded to a section of the old forged OEM ball joint that accepts
the Chrysler style screw in ball joint. I made a set of prototypes that I
took to SUNI but haven't had a chance to install them yet. This design
fits the stock lower A-Arm without modification. These ball joints are
used on lots of current race cars.
The taper on the top and bottom of the Tiger spindle is the same but this
ball joint and general design won't work for the upper ball joint position
unless you have larger wheel diameters because of physical interference.
For this I'm looking at the bolt-in GM design ball joint but haven't worked
out any details.
I have the fixure made to machine the OEM pieces to accept the ball joint
rings which also doubles as the welding alignment fixture. Actually this
design was created to allow the use of other spindles with the Tiger
A-Arms. These two pieces will cover all the reasonably concievable 7
degree spindle taper sizes above and below the Tiger.
I hope to shoot some digital photos soon and complete the AutoCAD layouts
at least in 2D. Let me know if your interested in following this project.
Tom
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