Technical Buick Advice - 1955 Center Link Rebuild

I've got this 55 Buick Century that spent its life in a small farm town in North Dakota. So we are talking dirt roads, tough on suspensions. I've already rebuild the entire front and rear suspension. Now trying to improve steering a bit.

Anyway I'm rebuilding the center link (Intermediate Rod in service manual). The hollow rod looks a bit hacked up where the steering arm attaches. Should I spend the $400+ dollars to replace the hollow rod OR should I just rebuild with new cups, springs, etc.... take a look at the pic, you can see where the metal is beat up and the opening is deformed.

How much would that affect the steering if the springs, cups, etc are in fine shape?

Thanks for the help

Slylark
Minneapolis
"Waiting for the thaw"

 

You should be able to repair that with a little bit of welding and grinding. The way it is now it looks like the ball could just pop out of that. Definitely savable. Good looking Buick.

 

Thanks! Great idea about the welding, I was thinking about that as a possible fix. Fire up the Miller and die grinder, sounds like the way to go. Appreciate the input.

Btw, its interesting to see how GM redesigned the center link to speed up production and reduce parts. When compared to the center link on my 1964 Buick, the 55 setup seem so over engineered and complicated.

 

After some time with hammer, welder, grinder I've got things in much better shape. The diameter of the tube was stretched in the area around the steering arm but I was able to reshape it and now clearance is better. Might even tighten up the steering a bit

 

that looks almost as nice as the car.

 

Nice work.
Maybe you can find a larger '57 front sway bar?

 

Will a 1957 Buick Special/Century sway bar fit in the 55?

 

Have you checked out the AACA forums? There are some great Buick forums there . I get a lot of info there for mine. Someone will know what swaps out.

 

I will check it out. At one point there was a guy who had a few sway bars made for the 55 that was double the diameter of the stock one. I saw some old posts about it. People said made a big improvement in handling.

 

54-57 bars interchange. That small run of large bars was exhausted many years ago...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/233905303570?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649