I'm looking for a little advice from more experienced guys than me. Here are some pictures of the steering arms and knuckles (a.k.a. spindles?) I removed from my 70 Cutlass S. The steering arm sockets look rather worn, both inside the socket bore and on the top surface where the end link nut sat. Looks to me like it should be replaced, but maybe it's not a concern? Same goes for the ball joint sockets on the knuckles: the bores look a bit scored, but does that make them unsafe/unuseable?

Also tried to get pics of the wheel bearing surfaces of the spindle - see next post. I didn't see any pitting or scratches, but I felt some slight uneven-ness along the surface where the bearings made contact. And I did nick one of the bearing surfaces while trying to break the ball joints loose (one careless swing of the hammer...).

If someone can tell me whether this kind of wear is acceptable or not I'd appreciate the guidance.

 

Here are the rest of the pics.

 

The tapered holes in the steering arms & spindels for the ball joints all look fine.

These holes are not wear items. Once the joint is pressed in the stud in the bore does not move- unless they are improperly torqued. If the holes appeared to be hogged out (& it would be real obvious if they were) then you would need to replace.

I would hit those bearing surfaces on the spindle with some emory cloth or super fine wet/dry sandpaper to touch them up, but they look fine too. They are not discoloured(from heat) or gouged up, so I think you are good to go.

I'd re-use good originals like you already have long before i'd consider buying the chinesium repops available.

 

What Ben said....and....that top-of-the-steering-arm area where the nut sits is machined that way from the factory...sort of a "countersunk" area.

So, it doesn't look that way from wear and tear..the steeriing arms were made that way.

 

Thanks for the replies. I'll clean up the originals and put 'em back in service.

 

Just another voice to say those look just fine, perfectly normal...

Dress those hammer dings with some fine abrasive (emery, sandpaper, stone) like Rambow said, just to be sure the bearing sits on there right.

- Eric

 

Just to add some closure to this thread, here are my original steering knuckles and arms after sand blasting and a coat of Eastwood Detail Gray paint. The paint was actually a very close match to the bare metal color. I checked the fit of the new ball joint pins in the sockets and they fit nice and snug. I'll clean up the spindles a bit more and they'll be ready to go back on.