Front Suspension

Looking at a 74 dart, has had k-meber swapped after front suspension failure(???). Currently V8 K-frame, I pulled engine to go through it, and noticed passenger side lower control arm is slid back, almost off of pivot shaft. How does that even happen? I can see I will need to go through this front end, but real curious as the previous failure was said to have occurred on this same side, where entire wheel came off! Any ideas?

pictures would be a great start to help answer this question.
exactly how many parts were replaced other than the K ?
was there any previous crash damage in the past that could have been improperly repaired ?

You are right about pics, sorry. This is first time I've ever seen this car. Don't know any history on it. I know something is out of whack here. Vin says 74, grill, lights bumpers are 70. Kframe looks to be 67-72 v8. I can tell you also that it has old TTI headers that are smashed in like el cheapo headers and still hitting. Here is pic of kframe with engine out. Thanks for your help.

Time for bushings, although they sit behind a step in the pivot stud, so might not be too bad off.

new bushing time for sure. i have seen some walk out like that shown, but not as bad.
there seems to be an attempt at tightening up the slop in the control arm halves by the addition of the strap chunk on the end.
it's possible the bushing should have been replaced at that time but wasn't.

That’s a 68-72 k-frame.

Replace both drivers and passenger bushings.

At the same time look if the LCA pins have the same dimensions and fit in the k-member correctly

A-body LCA pins are different than E/B body pins.

It looks a little weird to me. Could be fine. But verify everything and trust nothing

Can you show a pic of the drivers side LCA bushing to Kmember area?

Also, take the Kember out and inspect it. Look for oblonged holes if someone tried to shift it to one side.

Wouldn't that push back the torsion bar come and out the back of the cross member?
No where for it to go, but back, unless somehow the TB bent, not likely.

Normally the torsion bar and strut rod hold the lower control arm from sliding rearward. What does the strut rod bushing look like? Is the K frame bent rear ward near the strut rod attachment point?
Doug

Makes me wonder if has the wrong strut rod. 74 a body is different from the 68-72 one.

Only if you remove the retaining ring in the transmission and torsion bar crossmember first will the torsion bars slide out to the rear on the early, pre 1973 A bodies. I think the early B bodies, 1962 to 1973 are the same on the torsion bars being held into the tranny cross member by a retaining ring

Couple good ideas here. I didn't even notice the strap welded on LCA. Too much fugly goin on, I suppose. I will inspect pivot pins in K, and may get some adjustable strut rods as I did not know there were different sizes, that is a strong possibility. Thanks to all.

Measure your strut rods front mounting edge to edge.

There is a measurement out there for 67-72 and 73-76