Peter Lufrano

Hi again,

My new to me '71 cutlass has a set of older Hotchkis front upper control arms installed, as well as spindles that are not stock.
The spindles are marked 371676 RH and 371675 LH.

Anybody have any idea where these spindles came from?

Did I luck out and these by chance are the spindle swap units once preferred to correct the geometry of the front suspension?

The car steers and handles quite well.

Many thanks in advance!

joe_padavano

Second Gen F-body (Camaro/Firebird). HOPEFULLY, your aftermakret arms also have the correct upper and lower ball joints to match, otherwise you have an unsafe condition that can lead to breakage of the ball joints. These spindles are taller than stock, so there is some geometry improvement, but the integral steering arms are wrong for the A-body application, which induces bump steer. Also, the brakes are the same 10.75" rotors as the stock brakes. The B-body spindles with the 12" rotors have the same height but bigger brakes.

Peter Lufrano

Thank you for responding Joe!
An "unsafe condition"? Why the heck would somebody do this?

What would your suggested course of action be? The upper arms are Hotchkis, but the lower arms appear to be stock.

joe_padavano

Ignorance.

The problem is that the later spindles use ball joints with a different taper on the shafts. The early ball joints will fit into the later spindles, but since the tapers don't match, the ball joint studs are not loaded as designed. This can cause the stud to snap off under load. The good news is that the correct upper ball joints bolt into the upper arms (either stock or aftermarket). The newer lower ball joints will fit into the stock early arms if the ball joints are machined slightly on the OD. This is how the HO Racing tall spindle swap was done back in the 1980s. The question is, has your car been built this way?

Alternately, it IS possible to ream the later spindles to match the early ball joints. Again, was this done or not?

Peter Lufrano

Well......that is a very, VERY good question!

Joe, as always you are one of, if not THE most knowledgable and helpful guys here! I thank you sir!

So, how would I go about confirming that this "swap" was done properly, or not?

and as I am well aware of the "B-body spindle swap", why would someone install these F-body spindles rather than the well documented B-body spindles?

Thank you once again in advance!

joe_padavano

Well, see if you can discern a part number on the ball joints. Also try to see if the lowers appear to have been machined on the OD where they press into the lower control arm. You unfortunately will likely have to pry up the boot to access that area.

Well, actually, the F-body spindles are pretty much the same as the B-body spindles on the small brake cars. If you use the spindles from the large brake B-body cars, you need to swap to the 1LE rotors to get the 4.75" bolt circle, and SSII/III wheels may not clear the 12" brakes anyway.

Peter Lufrano

Joe, thank you! You ROCK!

Sounds like the first course of action is to confirm that the proper ball joints have been installed and installed properly.

If all that confirms as good, I may be "good to go"!

joe_padavano

The other question is, are your aftermarket upper arms stock length or shortened? The problem with the tall spindle swap is that the stock upper arms require so much shimming to achieve proper alignment that the upper arms start to run into the exhaust manifolds or headers, especially on big block cars. Hotchkis and Global West sell shortened upper arms specifically for this spindle swap. If those are what you have, it's probably a good indication that the swap was done correctly.

Peter Lufrano

Yet another good point Joe. The Hotchkis upper arms that are installed are indeed the shorter design, for the spindle swap.

The car drives, steers, and handles quite well. It just through me for a loop, seeing F-body numbered spindles and not the well documented B-body numbered spindles.
Not having had the car very long, I am still learning what exactly I've got, and am perhaps too leery of finding some kobbled together mess, as I have seen soooo many times.

So I don't really want to "assume" anything is done right, just yet :^)

But the way the car drives and steers, it "probably" was done the right way.

I really appreciate your sharing your expertise Joe!