Reviving a Classic: Rebuilt Center Link on the 1965 Buick Riviera!

The 1965 Buick Riviera still has some slop or play in the steering, even after the rest of the suspension has been rebuilt. It turns out that the center link in the steering was completely worn out. In my search for finding a new center link showed that there were no off the shelf parts for this. I was offered a New Old Stock (NOS) center link for an unreasonable amount of money. The other solution that I found was a company that rebuilds the center links called Rare Parts Inc. They will take you old steering parts and replace the ball joints. The only issue there is the lead time is quite long.
In making some calls around to some others in the Buick Community, James Kehr of Best Offer Counts had spent some time finding a dozen old center links and had already sent them into Rare Parts 6 weeks prior to my contacting him. The intent is to have a supply of new center links on hand that are available on an exchange basis. You send in your old worn out one, he sends you one that's been rebuilt. This really works out great for the Riviera's, it helps minimize some down time on these long lead time parts. Here's a link to Best Offer Counts
bestoffercount...
Rare Parts Inc offers the rebuild service on a large number of makes and models, when you cannot find new parts, rebuilding them becomes the only solution. These guys do good work and I have no issue with the quality of their work. Here's a link to Rare Parts Inc:
www.rareparts....
The best part is that the Riviera now behaves like a completely different car and the bump steer is nearly completely gone. The steering feels as tight as a car of this era should be! It's so nice to have it drive and steer exactly as it's supposed to! The entire time this car has been with us, it's never steered this nice.
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