Hello all,
ok heres the deal. i am working on getting my t/a fixed up so its street legal. it failed inspection, so i took it to a local shop( cuz the guy rebuilt a sweet 79 t/a, a gto and has several 3rd gens in his lot.) well, besides a tune up and rear drum adjustment, he says my whole front end needs to be rebuilt i.e. new ball joints, shocks struts list goes on cuz i am not a suspension person. basically says there is to much wieght on passenger side front wheel and whole front end needs replacing. ok here's the kicker...they guy says it will run about $2,500-$3,000 to rebuild front end, plus the tune up and adjust drums. so basically $2 grand to rebuild front end...does this sound right, what should i have replaced and what should i expect. or should i take it to the local Midas. i am looking around for 2nd opinions, and oh yeah, i only paid $700 for the car. any help gladly taken, and if anyone knows a good shop in the Wayne/Ringwood area of Jersey. :hail:

 

that is a ridiculous price, if he quoted you $2 500 to rebuild front-end he is either a: on crack b: using you to support his crack.

You will need the following parts:

1. Ball Joints
2. Idler Arm
3. Inner/Outer Tie-Rod
4. sway bushings/endlink set (preferably polyurethane, a couple bucks more)

and possibly: 5. springs
6. shocks

there is probably a couple little things I'm missing, if your steering box has a lot of play in it you will need a new steering box, the best bet for this is to get a used one from an auto wrecker, try and get one from an IROC Z28 or a Trans Am GTA/WS6 they had a high-ratio box which is sweet... I bought mine for $60 when I was gunna install it in my s10.

Parts should cost you a few hundred dollars. Buy parts yourself, shop around, and then try and find a mechanic who works for a good rate and does good work (ie. no dealerships! try and find a good 'backyard' mechanic who's fussy and does great work).


If you want to buy good parts and have some extra cash to spend get Moog products, and while front suspension is apart another great upgrade would be a full polyurethane bushings kit from Energy Suspension, I think I paid about $70 US for my kit, really firms-up the front-end.

should take a full day to rebuild the front-end.

good luck,

garett

 

good so am not the only one who thought he should put down the crack pipe.lol thanx for the advice, i am gonna go price that stuff out now.:hail:

 

That is outrageous, for around $600 you should be able to rebuild your front end and I dont think a tune up & brake adjustment would cost $1,900 - $2400. I converted my rear drums to disk for $350 parts & labor. I paid $260 for PSC's front end rebuild kit and $300 for installation. The kit came w/ everything except for the center link which I purchased separately for $65.95. The kit comes w/ the following:
Upper & Lower Ball Joints
Inner & Outer Tie Rod Ends
Idler Arm
Graphite Impregnated Polyurethane Bushings*
Upper & Lower Control Arm Bushings
Sway Bar Bushing Kit with Brackets
End Link Bushings with Hardware
Polyurethane Tie Rod Boots
Polyurethane Ball Joint Boots
Strut Rod Bushings (Where Applicable)
Some Kits Include Control Arm Bumpers
*All Black Bushings Are Graphite Impregnated Polyurethane

If you order the kit, make sure that you tell them the size of your front sway bar, I did not and they sent me the wrong size sway bar bushings. They will automatically send you the 32 mm bushings unless you specify a different size. My RS has the 34 mm so you might want to verify before you order. www.performancesuspension.com

 

by the way, what is the stock size for the front sway bar for a t/a...just wondering, or how do i find out....thanx for the site i will definately order through them.

 

Unless your car came with the performance suspension package you either have 32mm or 34mm. I think that the performance suspension package equipped cars came w/ 36mm hollow front sway bar. Just measure yours before you order.

 

Ok there Ninja man, welcome to the boards.

First off, go to my link and see for yourself my rebuild in progress:

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/taramille...tos.yahoo.com/

To answer you question, $2K is a pipe dream. It's fairly easy to do if you're pretty competent with a wrench. A basic rebuild kit will run you less than $200, and if you piece it together with good Moog parts, maybe $250. The only thing I had to have someone do was my control arm bushings. Everything else was a pull and switch thing.

Do a search under my name and you'll find many threads dealing with a front end rebuild.

GOod luck....

Ed, doing my brakes still....

 

ok, thanx for replies, didnt realize there were already frontend posts...sorry....

 

I agree, thats a ludicrous price. Not to scare you or anything, doing it yourself is indeed a major PITA if you've never done it before. Basically warning you, but its definitely possible without power tools as I have done. If you're replacing your A-arm bushings, start soaking them in some kind of lubricant such as PB Blaster or WD-40 right NOW and do it for a couple days before you start this. Things will be rusted up good and it will help you in the long run. Borrow any specialty tools from Autozone for free and take your time, plan it out and if you think you're going to break bolts, make sure you have a backup set ready to order or know where to get them. And if you need a hand... hey I'm from Wayne, thats right around the corner from you.

 

Crap, I'll do it for $2400.

Here's an old message, where a guy was quoted $1800 to rebuild his front suspension, and even THAT was outrageous! Check it out: https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...threadid=57404

SummitRacing.com carries moog now. You can look up moog part #'s at http://www.federalmogul.com , and put them into Summit's parts lookup sheet on their website. For bushing kits, there's http://www.p-s-t.com and http://www.energysuspension.com (Summit doesn't carry PST, by the way.) And like JS92 did, for complete kits with Moog parts, you can go to http://www.performancesuspension.com . I want to rebuild my suspension, and am trying to decide between PST and PSC. I have a feeling it'll be PSC...

Also, the idler arm and center link are common "wear parts" on our cars- meaning, over time, they simply wear out! These two parts by themselves will cause loose steering. Was this a "regular" garage with an alignment rack? See if you can find an actual tire/alignment/brakes shop... they might give you a better diagnosis. I hopped a high curb once- the shop I go to was able to tell me I bent my spindle, but it wasn't bad, and they got it to align to spec. If you know where the spindle is, I'm still amazed at how they could tell it was bent! I replaced it myself with one from a parts car I had, and sure enough, the car aligned easier the next time. But I think you need to go to a good tire shop to get a good diagnosis like that. The place you went to might not be able to tell what pieces are bad, so they'll make you replace everything.

 

Oh, I noticed that price he gave is also supposed to include a tune up and rear drum adjust. They're both things that you can do yourself. Do you have any kind of shop manual? I recommend the Haynes 82-92 Firebird manual, from Pep Boys for $15, for a first manual. If you have the coin, get the official GM shop manual from http://www.helminc.com - I have both, and use the GM/Helm manual for the technical stuff, and the Haynes book for easy disassembly procedures (like rebuilding a caliper, changing the fuel tank, dropping the trans, swapping rear axles, etc).

But the Haynes will give you a good start on things, and does cover tuneups and suspension work. Fact, I think I followed their procedure to replace my steering knuckle. Why bring the big/expensive GM book to the garage when the cheapie manual has the same procedure?

 

Yeah, the PSC kit came w/ Moog parts & ES polyurethane bushings, I saw a post a while back that said the PST kit did not come w/ Moog parts. The PST kit might be cheaper but it does not have everything that the PSC kit has, PST does not include the idler arm and inner tie rod ends. I wanted the most complete kit that I could find w/ Moog parts & ES polyurethane bushings.

 

aight, damn i didnt expect so many post, but thanx all, very helpfull. I have the Chilton manual for the tune up stuff. now just gotta get this done...:hail:

 

Is he going to throw in a Moser 9" rearend in for that price!!!