lower control arms ball joint

[thegreatbriguy]

is the only difference between SHO and regular taurus lower control arms the thickness of the metal. in other words, would a regular taurus lower control arm fit and work properly? what about police?

 

[sperold]

Police is the same, regular Taurus is a lighter component.
Regular Taurus may fit, but no experience with that. Pretty sure the geometry is the same.

 

[itwonder]

I just finished working through this, and I'll post a detailed thread with pictures one of these days when I get time. There is a bunch of history on this, some of which I could not confirm as correct. As best I have been able to find, there are three LCA forgings that have been used on the Taurus. All will fit. The skinny one is used on the standard Taurus, and is still sold today in the aftermarket. The SHO and police cars had a middle weight LCA from the factory, at least in 1992 when my car was made. The heaviest LCA's are/were sold by Moog under SHO specific part numbers. Left side Moog LCA's are still available. Right sides appear to be out of stock everywhere. I think I may have bought the last of the heavy right sides; the one I found was available only because it was branded under Delco and overlooked. When I went to NAPA to get SHO part number LCA's, the left side was the heavy Moog part, but the right side was the skinny part. The skinny one comes in a longer box, and it has silver colored hardware. Obviously, there is some substitution going on at Moog; I doubt they plan to run any more heavy right side forgings, so they are just substituting whatever they have that will fit. The one LCA I'm not sure about is the Ingalls; have no idea which of these forgings they use, or how many are available. Much has been made about the SHO and police LCA's having stiffer bushings. Despite the claims, I do not believe this is true. All of them appear to use the same Clevite bushing. The exception is the el cheapo white box made-in-China standard Taurus LCA's sold at AA and some other places; those have a Chinese bushing. I would avoid those.

If you have a set of heavy LCA's with good ball joints, don't toss them out. The Clevite bushings are still available, and they can be pressed in to replace bad ones.