I have a 73 1.7 with 110K + on my front suspension, I am at a point where I want to replace bushings etc. Can anyone give me a parts breakdown on what I need. Thanks Mike

You need a new set of front bushings! It is almost that simple. There are several ways to go. You can get Poly Graphite bushings in a set from most any vendor here, you can get teflon made for the car by one of the venders here, you can get PolyBronze bushings or a factory type rubber bushing from another suspension vendor, or you can get monoball or roller bearing bushings from several different sources. Biggest question is what are you going to be doing with the car and how much do you want to spend?? The PG bushings are the least expensive by far with teflon next and then the others go up considerably from there.

how do you use your car and how much $$ do you have??

bushings
wheel bearings
ball joints - fortunately, they are still available in 1972+ flavor.
tie rod ends (Turbo tie rods is a good option).

I just did this with a bad case of "while I'm in there" thrown in...

Ball joints. Careful here, there are some bad ones.
Turbo tie rods. Again, some bad ones available.
Elephant bushings.
Rack spacers.
Elephant Racing tire rub kit.
Powder coat everything.

I also five lugged, and went with M-calipers that had to be rebuilt. How much? Oh hell no. Yopu sometimes hangs around here... (at least 1K)

Thanks everyone for the info. I off to by parts, against all odds I should have the car back on the road soon thanks to so many of you on the forum. Mike

i have a 72 front clip i was keeping around to rebuild someday for our 73. are they different and/or can it be used/interchanged?

mike

They are interchangable from the standpoint that you can put the complete 73 clip on the 72 but the interchangability of spacific parts is a little different. I beleive that some early parts will not work on some late parts. Calipers are an example i think and I think the actual struts may have a difference also. Someone will correct me if I am wrong.

will the 73' struts plug into 72 balljoints. basically frankinstiening the 2 assemblies together?

it's been done. you couldn't recommend it, but it's been known to happen.

Short version - you -can- file a 'V' shape into the early (pinchbolt) ball joints and use the wedge pin to hold it all into shape.

This wasn't a good idea 30 years ago but sometimes we do what we have to. These days it's a really bad idea... Because: an early ball joint is probably worn out. If it's -not- worn out (say you got one of the last NOS ones...) someone can probably use it - send it to a good new home.

The early ball joints are NLA - but the '72+ are still available. You need a new balljoint, just go buy a new ball joint.

As to your question - '72 was a transitional year (for sure in 911-land, less sure about the cutover with 914's) so before ASSUMING what you've got, you really need to go look to see if you have early or late struts/joints.

What I've seen in the early struts is that for a variety of reasons, the hole at the bottom of the strut wears and won't safely grip a ball joint shaft. Once upon a time I thought there oughtta be a way to fit a sleeve so you wouldn't have to pitch an otherwise perfectly good strut, but fast-forward 30 years and now I think uprating to the new stuff is probably the right thing to do unless you're competing in National-class concours.

up til now i didn't know they were different. fortunately i don't need to do anything on the front end, i just thought i'd hang onto it and re-do it on the side...

anyone need a inexpensive 72 down front suspension clip?

mike