[mrgto]

Happy Holidays all!

It's time to replace upper and lower ball joints. Looking at the Drivers side and the last time I had them done the shop welded the lower ball joint in place. So, I think it's time for a nice upgrade and replace the Upper and Lower Control arms with tubulars.

The wheels of my '68 Conv. never touched the track as she's a just a weekend cruiser. That doesn't mean I don't like to stretch her legs every now and then.

I don't need a race suspension, but I would like to go with a brand that would make a fairly easy install without modification. For example... I added headers and went with Doug's. Nice install....looks and sounds great too.

I spoke with the guys from Hotchkis at SEMA a few weeks ago, awesome components but looking at close to $1,500 for a set of upper and lowers. ... Anyone have any experience with "Pirate Jack" or this other ebay Seller?

I'm assuming these are probably made in China...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/64-72-GTO-Le...c9f4f4&vxp=mtr

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1964-1972-Ch...4d68e0&vxp=mtr

Thanks in advance!

[HWYSTR455]

I have those on the 442, and was concerned when I bought them. The first set were the wrong ones, and I sent them back for a refund. The seller went out of biz shortly after.

The correct set I got and went over them inspecting them to the teeth, and found no issues with them. I even compared them to some Global West arms I had, and although I didn't check geometry, they looked almost identical.

As for Pirate Jack, I use them almost exclusively for brake parts, the prices are great, the shipping is fast, and the support is very very good. I would have no problem buying a set from them.

My suggestion? Buy springs too. All 4. And I strongly recommend sourcing them from Global West.

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[67GTONUT]

UMI

http://www.umiperformance.com

[HWYSTR455]

Yeah, the UMI ones are $1100 though....Pirate Jack's are $360...for the whole set...

[rtanner]

put hotchkiss on my 69 judge, coulndnt put enough shims in em to get away from severe negative camber and have any positive caster, messed w them a month, pulled em and sold em, no idea if guy who bought em was happy or not, hard to beat a set of poly bushings, in the factory arms, do yourself a favor and get a moog offset upper inner shaft, so your alignment guy can get it right

[mrgto]

Thanks for the info guys. I checked out those Global West Arms.... we're still looking at over a grand for the set. I'm going to check out those Pirate Jacks. I'm guessing they're just reselling them.

[Chris65LeMans]

I have the UMIs, and am very happy with them.

$359 or $399 just sounds too cheap to me. Just like Earl Scheib paint jobs...

[BLANK1]

I bought a set of those cheap a-arms for my 68 GTO. They look just like the ones above from Pirate Jack. Only thing I did was put different ball joints in the lower arms. The lower arms were a little tight fitting in the frame mounts but other than that they fit pretty good and the alignment was almost right on. Only took a few shims in the upper arms.

[HWYSTR455]

Like I said, I compared the cheap arms to Global West arms and you can barely see the difference. I measured along a number of places and they seem to be the same geometry. The welds are good, clean, and the power coating is good. The hardware is good, bushing seem fine, and the bumpers are good.

I swapped the uppers with GW uppers, since I'm running tall spindles. I have over 15k miles on it and I've inspected the arms and everything, they're fine. I did swap lower ball joints too.

They were so inexpensive, I figured I could take a chance. There was another thread, you can search it here, I think I might have even posted measurements and pics side by side. There were several out there at one time, some were junk, some were good, had to be real careful. Now I see most are the ones that I ended up with, the good ones, and don't see many of the crappy ones on ebay anymore.

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