Is this radius arm smoked?

[68F100]

I got the frontend dropped on my 77 donor. I drove this truck for awhile before I started tearing it apart and it drove pretty good. But this is what I found when I got it apart:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/iamthewre ... pg&.src=ph


Is this thing toast? It looks as if somewhere along the line, it had very worn bushings and someone ran it that way for awhile resulting in this wear. It had pretty decent bushings in it when I took it apart, but I'm still going to use new ones.

I just don't want to waste time on cleaning it up the rest of the way and painting it if it's no good.

[FORDification]

Holy cow! Yes, I'd STRONGLY advise against reinstalling that! Rust has really had a field day under those bushings. The strength of that radius arm has been seriously compromised and would be unsafe to re-install and use. Just get another one from a U-Pull-It and consider yourself fortunate to not have been driving that thing when it failed, which could have been at the next big pothole.

[68F100]

Man, that sucks. I hope the ones on the 68 are in good condition. I'm doubtful though because I know the bushings on the passenger side of the 68 were shot.


Anyone got some good ones laying around?

[FORDification]

I've got a couple laying on a pallet at the shop. Might be a couple days before I can check them out to make sure they're good, though. I'd let you have it for the cost of shipping. Were you planning on going with the '67-'72 forged units or the '73-'79 stamped steel? Either one will work, they're just different in appearance.

[460 crew]

WOW

[flyboy2610]

Definetly do NOT use those! The life you save may be my childs!

[68F100]

Okie dokie guys. Looks like I shouldn't bother with these.

I'm all about doing this right, because I only want to do it once.

Hey Keith, if you have a pair of good ones, maybe we could make a trade. Let me know if there is anything else from my 77 you want.

[FORDification]

There might be something on that truck I'd be interested in. I'll send you a PM.

[68F100]

I don't know if you got my reply or not Keith.

[Heavenlyfire]

If Keith or someone else can't help you out, There is a pull a part here that has a real nice 70 F-100 that I have been getting parts off of. I looked at the front end today and it looks real good. The only bad part is that they are very expensive at this place. Let me know, I would be happy to get them for you.

[FORDification]

Sorry for the delay in responding....I did get your reply. That's fine with me. I'll be contacting you again this weekend.

[bmerkley58]

Your radius arm looks just like the ones I got off a 77 F150 that I am going to use for the disk brake conversion on my 67 F100. After pulling several others out I found they were rusted beyond what I felt was fit to use so I decided to replace the stud that was welded in on both radius arms. I machined out the welds and drove out the old studs. Then I had some 1 inch diameter grade 8 bolts machined down to the .875 diameter and one end cut down to .750 and then threaded to 3/4x10. I then drove them into the radius arms and had them welded back in place. Might sound like a lot of work but I also went through a lot of work pulling radius arms out only to find them in bad shape also.

bmerkley58