You ever have a weekend where you should not have entered the garage?

I am in the process of changing the upper ball joints for my 70 El Camino. So I stop in town Friday and order some upper control arm ball joints. I pick them up today and tried to install them.

The mounting bolts were way too big to go through the control arm. So I return to the store and talk with the counter guy (I brought my old ball joint with for show) and tell him that these will not fit. He looks up the p/n and is states it is correct. I show him the old ball joint and the compare the bolts. He gets this idea that I should drill out the control arm holes to fit the larger bolts. ARRGGHH!!! I told him I am not going to drill out my control arm and want to return these. I can tell he does not want me to return them and tries the drill them out routine again. So after returning them, I did not even bother with trying to get the correct ones from them. I stop by the other parts store and they are closed.

So now my Elky is on jack stands and it is too late to run down to the Car show and Club Meet across town. Well, at least I got the u-joints replaced last night.

Well, this is the common fix. The originals were "riveted in", where the replacements are bolted in.

I have seen where you can get the original rivets, but I think that's a bit anal.

It's common to "drill out" the bolt hole slightly to get the new bolts in.

If you don't wanna drill anything, go get grade 8 bolts to fit your bolt hole. ;)

John,
What DG said ... most of the new ball joints I have seen have metric bolts and nuts, which are a bit larger than the originals. A taper reamer will usually take care of it. I would almost prefer the larger bolts anyway.

The ball joints I was replacing were replacement ones. I replaced my 64 last year with a different brand and no problem. The bolts on the new ball joints were alot larger than the old replacement ball joint bolts.

You didn't go to a autozone or a kragen did you? No offense, but stick to a small independent parts outlet. They usually have a older guy around that's seen a-lot of these problems. Try a Napa store.

Yeah... ya want to know why you always get the lifetime warranty with any Checker, Schucks, or Kragen part like a starter or alternator? Its because they are such junk, you will be spending the rest of YOUR lifetime replacing them when they go bad.
I went to an independent shop for a starter and they built a hi-torque starter for me that has been in use for about 8 years with no problem - under header heat, fires every time.

'bear

No, I went to NAPA. Maybe the catalog number was wrong. I think the bolts were M8 size. I will have them look up a Chevelle instead of an El Camino.

If I were to drill them out as suggested, I would have been very close to busting out the edge of the control arm. I even check a set of aftermarket control arms I am saving for my 64' and they were not even close to fitting either.

I had the same problem switched to Moog parts no problem. All holes lined up.

I did a more detailed post on this subject a long time ago may be in 2002