12 mar 2023
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This document covers the basic stock suspension, including modifications to re-use failed parts. It also include minor optional modifications for drivability in the present era. This page should be useful for restoration sine there is a lot of technical detail and procedural stuff, but it's mainly aimed at making this car reliable and on the road without resorting to what are now extremely scarce and expensive NOS parts that will in turn wear out with modern use patterns.
The early Rambler American front suspension, 1958 through 1963, was derived from, and may be actually identical to, the 1950 through 1955 Nash Rambler suspension. Of course it's components work together as a system, but this page looks at it more closely as a set of sub-assemblies, how those sub-assemblies work and critically, how to work on them.
This is a double wishbone and trunnion system, with the road spring directly over the steering knuckle, in line with the virtual kingpin. This design has wonderful control over understeer in turns, and a anti-roll bar is unneeded (and not available). The spring carries load directly, not multiplied by moment (distance from fulcrum) so the spring is softer and lighter. Spring-over-knuckle also eliminates decreasing roll resistance in turns, a characteristic of most American suspensions through the 1980's, often compensated for by anti-roll bars. The downside of the spring-over-knuckle system is that it is very tall -- this really limited AMC's styling choices until the adoption of the new system in 1970. The spring is 20 inches long uncompressed, and 5 inches diameter; I think of it as a weapons-grade ball point pen spring.
The devil is in the details. The components and techniques used in this
system are just plain weird to folks with only "modern car" experience. A large
number of design-peculiar components are used and assembly and adjustment is
very labor-intensive with specific procedures that do not exist in modern
ball-joint type suspensions. Then there are a number of components that are
just poorly done, and some common parts, like shock absorbers, are completely
non-standard and cannot simply be bought at a parts store.
This was a Nash/Rambler part only, for the Rambler model designed in 1948, if not older (thanks to Sean Crane for that tidbit). They are occasionally reproduced; contact AMC/Rambler/Nash parts providers. Here is one documented for the history books:
Length is measured from the center of the lower eye to the base of the stud where the cupped washer sits.
| Overall length extended | 14-5/8" |
| Overall length collapsed | 9-3/8" |
| Eye hole diameter | 7/8" |
This is a brief rundown of the wear parts and critical items, a sort of overview of what's involved in making these suspensions whole again. There is no kit you can buy. Very few wear parts are available at ordinary auto parts stores. You will need to plan ahead with this car.
My strong advice is to not throw away any part no matter how small until you have obtained its replacement. I have found it to be a good idea to save one of each worn part, for future searches and reference.
Parts considered to be expendable:
Parts considered to be partly reusable, infrequent replacement:
Critical parts assumed to be lifetime (which ended some time ago):
The lower control arm is composed of two identical stamped arm halfs joined into a wishbone (triangle) by the heavy-duty spacer and bolt that doubles as shock absorber mount. The lower trunnion mounts into the gap in the outer end of the wishbone formed by the spacer.
Trunnion caps are force-threaded (like giant sheet metal screws) into the plain, unthreaded arms, when first assembled at the factory. More on that process below. These "threads" are easily damaged by cross-threading at reassembly, usually because the arms were bent for one of thew reasons outlined below.
Disassembly is best done off the car by removing the long 1/2" bolts holding the pivot bar onto the chassis, upper and lower, and removing the suspension assembly from the car. Extract the 9/16" bolt, the shock mount/spacer/stiffener and shock absorber, then the trunnion caps can be removed. Do not attempt to take off the trunnion caps until the stiffener is out, else the arm will be damaged.
The critical lower control arm stiffener doubles as lower shock mount, and the subject of much emphasis in this page. These are often removed and discarded from the car, and a generic bolt and shock absorber inserted in its place. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
The one below is a reproduction from Galvin's AMC Rambler Parts. Note that the original shock absorber eye hole is 7/8" diameter, where most modern shocks have 1/2" eyes.
I have worked up a kit that provides a replacement for this stiffener, and a bracket that accepts a modern shock absorber. See lower control arm stiffener details.
All of the lower control arms that I've collected in the last decade are bent.
The critical relationships in the lower arm are bushing, spacer/stiffener, trunnion parallelism. This much is obvious: the lower arm assembly is intended to move (only) up and down. However, when the stiffener/spacer is not present, the trunnion end of the arm is free to shift fore and aft from tire forces, twisting the trunnion as the arm shifts.
The three corners of the triangle are the two inner bushings and the stiffener. It is an equilateral triangle; each half (front and rear) are (or should be) the same.
The two critical dimensions are
These are easily checked on the bench with a simple setup; see below for details and dimensions.
It appears that slight error between pivot bar and stiffener flats is acceptable; there is enough compliance in the bushing itself to compensate. However bends in the stiffener to trunnion cap boss area causes binding in the trunnion, and leads to stripping out of the shallow threads cut into the arm by the trunnion cap, formed when the part is first assembled by the factory all those decades ago.
Chrysler and others use a similar technique in the modern era with upper and lower ball joints, force-tapped into steel stampings. These parts do not seem intended to be reused; there is no information whatsoever in any Nash or Rambler service manual on reassembling used arm parts. I suspect the idea was that the dealer would replace worn arms. Given the lack of AMC parts counters (we'd probably complain of the high prices, anyway) we must reuse old parts.
This photo demonstrates how the stiffener completes the triangle, and the lack of one ruins arms. Here a complete control arm is mounted in the vise, and for this demo the stiffener bolt has been loosened, and a short ruler fastened to one arm half.
Tire force in braking pushes the trunnion towards the back of the car, to the left in the photo (this would be passenger side). Without the stiffener, the arms pivot on the complaint rubber bushings (poly here, same thing), and move towards the rear of the car. This cants both armsthe ruler shows total deflection. This force is applied to the thin ends holding the trunnion caps in place.
Fellow AMCer Tom Bond found a pair of NOS lower control arms and was kind enough to make the effort to take photos and measurements that have provided some critically important information needed to repair used, bent arms and answer a question regarding the odd threads in the arm ends.
As suspected, the arms are stamped without threads, and the trunnion caps force-cut new threads into the plain arm ends. In his words:
"OK here's how we did it. My friend has a 40-ton press and a very strong SnapOn 1/2 drive long handle ratched with a 3' long cheater pipe over the ratchet handle. We took the 1-1/8" socket and placed a nut inside so it would bottom on the cap top, brought the press down slowly and ratcheted the cap on cold like the factory did. You will not find any tap for this, the threads are meant to self-tap under pressure. Once we had both tight to the arms, we backed one out a few times because that is the side I'll thread in."
Since these arms were never in use they provide the missing critical dimension, spacer-flat-to-bushing-end, as indication of arm straightness.
Here are photos of the arms. These are all NOS, unused parts so assume these to be authoritative.
Checking for straightness is easy. You'll need a straight ege of some sort, here a quality 12" steel rul or actually-straight flat stock, and a ruler or tape measure. The 12" rule is used to extend the plane of the critical arm stiiffener flat surface up (out) to the end of the arm, and the distance from that plane to the flat portion (indicated) of the far end of the arm is measured.
The two photos below shows the measurement setup. The correct measurement, derived from Tom Bond's unused, NOS arms, is 3.625" (3-5/8"). The arm used in the photos below is bent, and so the measurement is incorrect.
The stiffener flat and the trunnion cap boss must be exactly parallel also.
The lower trunnion consists of three precision castings that connect the two stamped lower arm halves into a unit, and accepts the lower end of the steering knuckle. The trunnion attaches to each arm half via a bizarre (sorry, right word) double-threaded cap. There is a "type 1" and a "type 2" design, they are interchangeable, and type 2 is to help eliminate what a certain car and rocket designer calls "rapid unscheduled disassembly". The Type 1 is shown above.
The steering knuckle threads into the trunnion, vertically. The trunnion caps thread onto the trunnion itself, and into the arm halves, simultaneously, and horizontally. Each portion of the pivot (two caps, knuckle) has much metal to metal contact area, and tend to wear quickly if not frequently lubricated.
"Early" (1960, at least) has only one grease fitting (Zerk) on one cap; "late" (1963, at least) both caps and the trunnion casting itself, have grease fittings. It seems indefensibly stupid of AMC to not provide for lubrication. Early trunnion parts are usually excessively worn, even on the (rare) car that was well-maintained.
If you can find or afford it, replacing the no-hole parts with those drilled for grease fittings, it will extend the life of the part. Sadly the parts are case hardened and cannot be drilled.
The (1960's) aftermarket came up with a solution: "trunnion repair kits" augmented the lower trunnion with a far more robust, greasable part. It retains the cap system out of necessity. I have a set of these in my Roadster. They were expensive and sourced from two different non-US countries.
The inner bushings on the lower control arm are a press fit into the stamped arm. These can be pressed out, and new ones in, with 1/2" drive sockets and a big bench vise, or a threaded rod washers and nuts.
Bushings are Raybestos 565-1017 or equivalent, and may or may not be available. I fabricate my own bushings, refer to the performance suspension page for details. Most of the photos on this page show the homebrew bushings. I no longer use OEM replacement bushings. The bushings look like many common bushings, but the inside diameter is an unusual .695", to fit over the 11/16" pivot bar.
| Part | Raybestos 565-1017 |
| ID | .695" |
| OD (smaller) | 1.255" |
| Shell | 1.00" |
| To step | 0.725" |
The bushing is pressed into the arm until the step-up shoulder of the bushing shell contacts the arm, this determines proper depth.
The upper trunnion assembly arm consists of all of the parts inline with the green lines on the drawing below. The trunnion is free to pivot in one plane, riding on the trunnion bolt. Note that as side effect, as the wheel moves up and down, because all of the pivots are threaded the trunnion casting moves fore and aft (the green line is parallel to a line drawn between the front and rear wheels on one side). The bolt also cuts threads into the arm, making them non-interchangable once installed (therefore in 2020 all used arms are leading or trailing -- not interchangable when used with the bolt). This is covered in detail in the factory technical service manual.
Note which upper arm half the trunnion bolt head was threaded into. The bolt passes through one arm, then the trunnion, then the other arm, and a nut and washer. It is important to note which arm half has the bolt-head in it -- the threads are a larger diameter there. Mark with a punch or hacksaw mark for reassembly. Details are below.
The original upper trunnion bolt is hollow, with a zerk fitting on it's head. The cross-drilled hole is intended to disperse grease into the threads. This does not work. Coupled to 1960's attitude to economy-car maintenance ("buy a new car soon") upper trunnions were rarely successfully greased.
The upper control arm trunnion system fails more often than not. The head of the trunnion pivot bolt is supposed to "jam" on the leading arm (at pink X in image above), and a nut and lock washer jams the bolt to the arm on the other (at pink Y). This does not survive ordinary use patterns.
The bolt is supposed to rigidly connect the arm halfs, and pivot within the casting. What usually happens is that given the large contact area the bolt freezes in the casting. This forces the bolt to rotate in each arm half, stripping the threading in the thin, stamped arms. No longer a stiff A-arm, all of the components shift around in operation, ruining the arms.
Disassembly is easy in theory -- extract the trunnion bolt. In practice the trunnion bolt is often frozen into the casting from years of neglect. In my experience the stuckest bolt I ever had to extract. See "Severe wear case study" below.
Below is a photo of typical damage to an upper arm half resulting from upper trunnion system failure.
The trunnion casting generally survives, but bolt and arm halfs destroyed. Even badly-damaged arm halfs are candidates for my recommended repair/improvement, described below. Don't throw them out just yet.
For the historical record, here is what they should look like.
Some of this is in the service manual but it barely gets mentioned and it's quite important and parts are ruined when these are overlooked.
The upper trunnion bolt is unusual. It is tool-steel-hard, and the threads are larger at the head end. This is what the TSM says:
This larger diameter stretches the arm metal to make a tighter fit. I guess the assumption, beyond "no one ever does this work, really" is that the dealer did this work and they'd use new parts each time.
You can't see or measure the difference when everything is caked with crud. If you disassembled it without marking the parts, you can probably figure it out from evidence left behind. Fit of the bolt in each arm hole (it will "rattle" if too loose), or marks left behind by the toothed washer.
The arms in these photos below appear to have been a car that was as-is factory assembly condition, and very low wear. This is the only one I have seen like this in nearly 50 years of Ramblering.
I would not assume that you will measure the same values, I include them here as a guide for careful sleuthing. If the arm was disassembled and "rebuilt" or repaired, and the bolt went back into the same arm half, you might see this evidence. But it's common -- I did this until very recently! -- to not pay attention to which went into which, the arm will be weakened once installed. luckily not a lot lf lateral (side to side) load is applied to the upper arm. It works.
This is a terrible design. The only thing that stops lateral motion is the head of the bolt jamming in the sheet metal on the leading arm, and the nut jamming the arm on the trailing side.
My upper arm fix, described elsewhere, absolutely solves this problem and eliminates the need to find good trunnion bolts.
Here's how I check for upper arm bends. It's simple. They can be straightened, carefully, if not too bent. The control arm bushings provide a surprisimg amount of tolerance at the poter (trunnion) end, so get the end dimensions within 1/8" and it should be fine.
The upper control arm bushings are a press-fit into the stamped arm, same as the lower arm bushings. They are dimensionally the same except for press-fit-depth limiting ridges on the outer shell. In my experience these upper bushings are "not available" when the lowers are, and sometimes parts catalogs substitute lower bushings, for uppers.
The possibly-more-available lower bushings can be used in the upper arm as long as you carefully measure and control the depth to which you press them into the arm. The TSM states to press them in until the stepped portion is 1/2" from the arm itself.
THe same fabricated soft polyurethane bushing solution used in the lower arms works just great in the uppers too. See that section above for details. If you leave the old bushing press-fit in the arms, and extract the dead rubber and center sleeve, you can install poly in the shells.
Below is the sequence of events I have worked up to repair damaged upper control arms and substantially improve the longevity of the trunnion pivot. I no longer attempt to use OEM type replacement bushings; they are all too old, even when new, to last long, and I'm replacing them with the soft polyurethane system described above. The procedure below will work with stock or homemade bushings.
Briefly, the fix below welds nuts to the ruined arms, which replaces the inadequate and probably non-existant threads in the stamped arms, and replaces the expensive and unlubricable trunnion bolt with a short section of chrome-moly threaded rod with a nut welded on (cheaper than the equivalent bolt, and perfectly adequate since the bolt is not under any longitudinal stress).
In my experience the improvised pivot bolt wears faster than the factory bolt, for sure; wear was noticable after five years and 50,000 miles. However this wear, effectively reducing the O.D. of the bolt as it pivots in the casting. I had only removed it to replace with a higher-performance tubular arm on my roadster.
I strongly recommend making this fix on the trunnion casting even if you use the factory parts. There is no downside other than the lack of originality. The original factory scheme for lubricating the upper pivot is laughably useless. It does not work. This is a simplification of my 2007 solution and it works just as well with far less machining. It could be done with a hand drill.
Thoroughly clean the casting and run a tap through the long threaded hole (5/8-11 thread). The threads are likely terrible, corroded or damaged as shown below, but it doesn't seem to matter; there is far too many of them anyway, and the wear increases lubricability.
Zerk placement is not critical, center it in the casting. You will have to remove wheel and tire to grease it. Lubricate it once a year. It will take time and effort to get grease in there.
Insert procedure here.
Here is the end result: a 5/8-11 nut welded to the outside of each arm, providing sufficient threads for a jam-nut system.
The nuts must be indexed before welding. This is done by assembling the (newly-bushed) arms onto the pivot bar, inserting the bump stop, and snugging the fasteners. This sets the open distance, the gap, between the two arm ends where the trunnion will fit.
Consider the path of the bolt/threaded rod: the threads on the left hole must align with those on the right. The easiest way to do this is to assemble as above, run the bolt with a nut threaded up to the head through the holes (stripped/partially stripped or OK), add the nuts to the threaded rod, tightened finger tight (don't bend the arms tightening them) and then weld the nuts to the arms.
After the above the bolt is guaranteed to pass through all parts at final assembly.
If hole(s) are ovalled by extreme wear, as in the photo above, you should find that the arm ovalled inward; the portion of the hole that still has a raised lip is the original hole location. Press the loosely-assembled new bolt up against this original portion, then weld the nut. Slight errors will "come out in the wash" when the suspension is aligned when it's back on the ground.
Use either stock OEM type bushings or the fabricated poly bushings described above.
Since the two arm halfs are independent, you will need to line them up to assemble. This is easy: insert the bump stop/arm spacer and bolt, tighten (to take up all slack) then loosen. Insert the pivot bolt (here, from the left), thread all the way through into the right.
Tighten the bump stop/spacer. Remove the pivot bolt.
This photo shows the relationship between the trunnion casting and the arms. The gap is intentional, and is filled by the grease seals, left off here for the photo. Actually I had forgot grease seals, but took this photo to make it seem like I did it on purpose.
You forgot the grease seals (and by you I mean me). Take it apart and insert them.
Thread the pivot bolt through the casting, installing the grease seals on the far side. It's easiest to install one over the raised lip first. Torque the bolt to XX ft/lbs.
Add the jam nut and tighten to XX ft/lbs. The jam nut is probably not necessary.
Note that grease actually flows out of the upper trunnion pivot.
The upper control arm is now ready for final assembly.
Given the complete lack of any direction from AMC, I have worked out the following procedure which I believe should be repeatable for new or used parts in moderate condition. I have added steps to deal with bent parts. This is a straight-up how-to but there is some discussion of the reasoning and logic behind my decisions. If you have corrections or better ideas please let me know.
Reality is that not only do we not have any new parts available, we do not even know what the correct dimensions are for them. Therefore I am shimming the stiffener to adjust the critical spacing necessary for the trunnion to not bind. I've determined experimentally that 0.020" of error in the arms will cause some binding in the trunnion cups. Moderate binding will increase wear rapidly, and reduce the effectiveness of greasing them. Heavy binding will grind metal, cause heating and rapid degradation of scarce parts, and could lead to RUD. What's written here is my personal experience, I am not responsible for work you do on your own car, this is not professional advice. Refund available on your way out the door.
Shimming (so far, well under .100") has no effect on strength or geometry. It is the least-change solution.
There are now two methods of assembly, the most recent one solves a lot of need-three-hands annoyance. It requires a stiff spring as a tool and an AMC valve spring is perfect.
Whatever method you use, they should like like this when complete.
The lower control arm is now ready for final assembly.
Nash (Rambler) put needle roller bearings here which seems excessive. They are not under any real load, a plain bushing would easily have done. No matter, so far every one encountered was reusable, though neglected for half a century. Washed and repacked they should last another half century.
There are two bearing assemblies atop each knuckle pivot in the trunnion casting. The races are a friction-fit within the casting. Drive them in with gentle blows of a hammer on a 3/8" drive ratchet extension with 3/4" socket, squarely. Drive them just below flush with the casting, top and bottom.
These are lubricated once at assembly, only. They wear, but seem to be durable. Replacements are often spotty, but I was able to find an inexpensive pair on Amazon in 2020 (now gone, 2021). Spend the 20 minutes it takes to pack thoroughly.
| Part | NICE 608V |
| ID | .878" |
| OD | 1.985" (not critical) |
| Height | 0.595" (not critical) |
Next is a look at at the front suspension from my 1963 Rambler American, disassembled for repair in 2007. If I recall correctly the car had 90,000 miles on it.
This was a case of extreme neglect. The lower trunnion was worn, but reusable. The upper trunnion bolt on both sides had frozen into the casting, stripping the threads out of each arm. In both cases the hardened trunnion bolt was removed in pieces. Both bolts had to be ground out, millimeter by millimeter, with carbide drill bits sacrificed for the job. Luckily the trunnion bolts are bored (the aspirational grease hole) providing a centerhole for the grinding bit.
(Before I resorted to this grinding business, I heated dull red/plunge-cooled six times, penetrant fluids of all kinds; longitudinal tapping both directions, rotational pressure back and forth. Eventually I torqued the head off the 5/8" hardened bolt.)
(I managed to extract one half-inch length of bolt thread, the measurement
of which backed up John Elle's suspicion of the reduced OD.)
The so-called K-brace (the TSM calls it the "pivot bar brace") is a critical part! Do not leave it out! I have seen cars on the road without them. I've found mine self-loosened. The TSM calls for it's bolts to be tightened to 80 ft/lbs. The bolts look like (and could even be) lug bolts; they are hard, have a conical head, and clamp the K-brace to the pivot bar casting with a 3/8" thick hard toothed bar. Not light-duty stuff.
The unibody seems to want to spread here, as many cars end up with an awful lot of shims to pull the pivot bars inward during alignment.
The steering system consists of the old Gemmer steering box, the pitman arm, the oddly complicated Nash steering tube, and the tie rod ends.
Placeholder for steering tube and to move Gemmer box here.
You'd think this would be easy... Even if the year was 1963 and your car was up on a lift at a factory-authorized dealership, you would need to examine the part currently installed to determine the part you need -- AMC shipped cars with left-hand-thread (LH) parts on both sides of the car, and also with mixed LH and RH threaded parts. It's in the official factory parts catalog, shown below. Then there is the additional reality of 60 years of repairs and potential parts swapping.
Updates (25 march 2022) to this information came out of research helping John Guilford figure out part numbers for his 1958 American. The information I've had posted for a few years now, below, is correct for model years 1960 through 1963, only. It may not be correct for 1958 and 1959, and earlier.
1960 through 1963 Americans should most often (sic) have an ES344L type tie rod end, LH threads, on both sides of the car. AMC part 320 2114. This excerpt is from the AMC Factory Parts Catalog, a seemingly authoritative source:
The cryptic factory parts catalog snippet above requires some unpacking. Circled in green is the "most common" rod end, the ES344L LH part, 320 2114. 60-61 01-10 (WPS) means 1960 to 1961 American (01) and classic (10) With Power Steering; 62-63 01 means 1962 and 1963 Americans (01), all, use it. So all 62-up Americans are LH thread tie rod ends both sides, and "some" 60, 61 Americans and Classics are LH both sides.
The line item before the green-circled one is in typical AMC fashion somewhat ambiguous; LPS means Less Power Steering (which you might think is the same as line items simply omitting WPS but you would be wrong), the 320 2118 part is used on 60 and 61 American (01) Classic (10) and Ambassador (80) cars less power steering, 62 through 1965 Classics and Ambassadors (LPS? WPS? all?), and 60 and 61 Rebels, again, unclear on power steering.
And then there is the supercede/replacement parts numbers in bold and parethesis. What are those substitutions and why? How were they different? There is text about lubricable or not; is that the only change? And what's "use 320 5503" mean?
The joke amongst AMC lifers is that the factory used "the top of the pile" or whatever parts they had on hand at the moment, and in fact this explains the reality of what is found on cars, now 60 years later but also back in the 1980s. No only, these cars are old, and most have been repaired again and again, and AMC dealers likely wanted cars out the door and not sitting up on lifts awaiting parts to arrive from Kenosha. Keep in mind that AMC was a very small manufacturer; Ford made more Model T's than AMC made cars of any kind in it's 30 years.
I think it extremely likely that to some extent, the parts catalogs are works of fiction or wish fulfillment; this catalog excerpt comes from the "1960 to 1965" catalog, so it was written 5 years after the earliest cars in it were shipped, and they are trying to provide a resource for dealer mechanics to support customer product.
All of this is the long 'way round saying, measure first; never throw an old part away until the car is driven, and where possible, save one old example of these kinds of difficult parts, even if unusable, so that you can later identify the correct part.
| Thread | Length | Taper | Small | Large | taper height | Taper thread | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moog ES344L | 11/6"-11 LH | 4" | 7 deg | .579" | .620" | -- | 1/2-20 |
It may be that there is a RH part on the passenger (right) side. If this is the case the part you want is ES344R, or equiv. Before you buy replacements, verify the handedness of the parts in the car now!
| Thread | Length | Taper | Small | Large | taper height | Taper thread | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moog ES344L | 11/6"-11 LH | 4" | 7 deg | .579" | .620" | -- | 1/2-20 |
| Moog ES344R | 11/6"-11 RH | 4" | 7 deg | .579" | .620" | -- | 1/2-20 |
I tell ya I'm getting a little tired of writing about tie rod ends.
There are apparently, according to Moog, yet another variation, tie rod ends with 9/16-18 threads. They appear in this Moog 1939 to 1959 catalog. Note too that this backs up the above business about various left/left, left/right, etc. "Top of the pile". Look in this same catalog in the Nash section also.
Other parts to seek out and measure; these could be the variations indicated in the AMC Parts Catalog, and they could be wildly different, or exactly the same, but minus grease fitting, different style, etc.
Research targets: ES245, ES281, ES168, ES166, ES177, ES266, ES267, , alll with or without L or R suffixes. By this I don't mean "get from the parts store". They are all obsolete parts.
An additional error is that I stated a Mevotek MES368 part fit; it does not. Doing research in 2021 I ordered one from RockAuto; I measured the threaded portion as 11/16-18, declared success, put it on my parts shelf. Then I ordered a second so that I'd have a spare pair. In working with John, I pulled both down to measure and the newer one was 5/8-18 thread, matching John's part and consistent with "late AMC" specs. So much for my spares.
I have in my shop steering link assemblies removed from one early car (1958?) and one later car (1963 I think) that have a left and a right, on alternate sides. I make no claim that this is "correct" or factory work. The 60 year life of an economy car provides a lot of opportunity for swap-in-whatever-works from the junkyard.
As I stated on the main page, parts are becoming very difficult to find.
It appears that this part below, specified for Ford half-ton pickups back to 1948, is identical in all respects except length. This may matter; wirebrush your installation clean and check for "sufficient" thread engagement. I'd want a full inch, minimum, and dont' froget to tighten the clamp. This isn't advice!
| Thread | Length | Taper | Small | Large | taper height | Taper thread | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moog ES416L | 11/6"-11 LH | 3.25" | 7 deg | .579" | .620" | -- | 1/2-20 |
| Moog ES416R | 11/6"-11 RH | 3.25" | 7 deg | .579" | .620" | -- | 1/2-20 |
I do a lot of data sleuthing, and on one site I don't trust enough to buy from (and the price was outrageous) substantial cross-reference information was revealed -- this is howe I cross-referenced the ES344L part to AMC 320 2114. I am quite certain ES344L fits the later Americans because I have been driving them for years. So as a source for research these numbers should be good leads:
ES344L 1964 - 1967 Ford Econoline 3.9L, 2.8L, 2.4L inline six Driver (left) side. Dust Boot Included: Yes End 1 Gender: MALE End 1 Thread Direction: Counterclockwise End 1 Threads Per in.: 18 End 2 Gender: Male End 2 Threads Per in.: 20 Greasable: Yes Length Stud Center to End: 4.000 in. Type: STRAIGHT ACDelco #: 45A0041 American Motors Corp (AMC) #: 3202114 Autospecialty #: 03-85031 Autospecialty #: 385031 Centric Parts #: 612.65002 Chrysler #: 3202114 Dayton Parts #: 310167 Dorman #: 532-682 Duralast #: ES344L Elgin #: ES344L Ford #: C4UZ-3A131A Maremont #: TR344L Mcquay-Norris #: ES344L Mevotech #: MS40661 NAPA #: 269-2155 Perfect Circle #: 269-2073 Perfect Circle #: 269-2155 Raybestos Brake #: 401-1041 Renault #: 3202114 Studebaker #: 1561769 TRW Steering and Suspension Parts #: ES344L Unimotive #: TR344L Country of Origin: US ES344R 1964 - 1967 Ford Econoline 3.9L, 2.8L, 2.4L inline six Passenger (right) side. End 1 Gender: MALE End 1 Thread Direction: Clockwise End 1 Threads Per in.: 18 End 2 Gender: Male End 2 Threads Per in.: 20 Greasable: Yes Length Stud Center to End: 4.000 in. Type: STRAIGHT Autospecialty #: 03-85032 Autospecialty #: 385032 Dayton Parts #: 310168 Ford #: C4UZ-3A130A Mcquay-Norris #: ES344R NAPA #: 269-2156 Perfect Circle #: 269-2156 Raybestos Brake #: 401-1041 TRW Steering and Suspension Parts #: ES344R Country of Origin: US
Wheel hub parts are the same parts AMC used up through the 1980s and so they remain plentiful (for now). Replace the seal every time you pound out the inner bearing.
| Inner bearing set (larger) | Timken SET6 |
| Outer bearing set (smaller) | Timken SET2 |
| Grease seal | National 7022S |
Bearing SET6 is LM67048 (bearing) + LM67010 (race) combined, sold as a single item/product.
