costpenn

Finished stripping my frame today prior to sending it off to be powder coated. (70 W-30) I am also going powdercoat the upper and lower control arms, and I drilled out the rivets to remove the uppers. Looked at my Chineseum AC Delco replacements and almost threw up. Not only do they not look anything like the OE's but the stud is at least 3/8 shorter than the original. I had already thrown the old ones out, so I went dumpster diving to get them out before the trash is picked up tomorrow.

Has anyone reused the old ones after removing them from the A arm? They are nice and tight, and I can get the rivet looking bolt kit from ILT. The only thing I would need are new boots - I might be able to take those off my aftermarket ones and use with the old retainers I also saved. Thoughts are appreciated!

CutlassDad

(New) Greasable Moogs. A little expensive, but worth every penny.

Octania

Plenty of life left in them.
New fasteners and new boots, sure
You know they will FIT RIGHT.
I'd take good used over Chinesium offerings.

jag1886

If they aren't worn I wouldn't worry about it. The uppers are just alone for the ride anyway.

oldcutlass

X2 on the Moog parts, and not that expensive. Use Rockauto and the discount code, should be less expensive than your local parts store.

Boiler_81

Use the originals if they are in good shape. There is nothing which looks like the OEMs. Rivet them back in. The Corvette guys have been doing it for awhile. However, the cost of the rivet tools is cost prohibitive for doing one set of control arms. There are places which do it for Corvettes. I'm sure they would rivet an A body arm.

Also, don't throw anything away during the course of the project. Stick stuff like this in a box and put it on a shelf until your restoration is complete and you are SURE you won't need it.

Fun71

I would first ask: how did you separate the control arms?

If you used a fork, then I would not recommend reusing the ball joints as the studs may have been stressed and may break (had that happen back in high school while I was driving down the road).

If you used a separator tool, then maybe as the stud should not have been stressed.

costpenn

Joe, I don't know for sure but I would assume these are the tall ones.

costpenn

I did use the pickle fork. The upper ones only needed a couple of good raps to come loose, while I beat the hell out of the lowers to get them to separate.

mrolds69

You can re-use them, but I would not re-rivet them. You can use hi grade allen key button head bolts, they will resemble the rivets. You can but 3m strip caulk or body fiiller in the key holes, so if you need to remove you can just pick out the holes easily. You can get the allen bolts anyplace.

bassinguy

My 2 cents. I would not reuse them. New Moogs aren't that expensive,and I would rather be safe than sorry later on down the road.

Boiler_81

Depends on the goal of the build, I would use the originals as uppers really don't see a lot of wear and the Moogs don't look like the originals.

costpenn

If this car gets driven more than 50 miles a year it would be a lot. I want to compete at professionally judged shows at the national level.

Thanks for all the replies - will be reusing them if I can successfully remove the rest of the rivet from the joint housing.