Hello everyone!
I'm wrenching on my 122 again after a 5 year hiatus.
I'm at sea for another week and ordering parts so I can work on the front end when I get home. I'd like to order them now so I can install them before I have to leave again.
I have a couple questions that should be easy for someone with loose parts and a tape measure:

Upper control arm:
1. What is the distance from center of the upper wishbone shaft, to center of ball joint (that is, the effective length of the arm?)
2. What is the distance between the mounting clamps to the wishbone shaft?
3. What is the distance between the mounting holes on the upper wishbone shaft?

Lower Control arm:
1. What is the distance from the center of the lower wishbone shaft to:
a. The center of the ball joint?
b. The center of the shock mount?
c. The center of the spring (if not centered on the shock?)
2. What is the distance between the inner bushing faces on the inner arm (where the lower wishbone shaft goes through?)

Steering Knuckle:
1. What is the height from lower ball joint face to upper ball joint face?
2. What is the length of the steering arm from the center of rotation to the tie rod end?

Extra Credit: Does anyone know offhand, the taper of the lower ball joint and the length from the pivot to the top of the threads?

I really appreciate the help. I stopped work on the car when I found the front knuckles, brakes, and lower control arms were no good (plus moving, divorce, and renovating a 175 year old farmhouse that has no garage...). I've got some knuckles left over from another abandoned project and if I can get some ballpark numbers on the control arms I might be able to make a working car by spring 2016.
Thanks!
Ben

i have some tech diagrams with measurements at my shop, I'll try to take a pic and send it if I get there tomorrow, otherwise on Monday. I can't remember if they have all the dimensions, try a google search. My diagrams came in a set of factory repair manuals for the the 120.
--
Patrick, '68 220 , '53 GMC 4104, '97 VW Transporter.

I think this is all I have

http://www.volvoamazonpictures.se/documents/sevice_manuals/TP_10176_1_5000_11_65_122body.pdf
--
Patrick, '68 220 , '53 GMC 4104, '97 VW Transporter.

and this

http://volvoamazonpictures.se/documents/sevice_manuals/8Body120.pdf

both pdfs have a tech diagram on the last pages of the doc.

If you need more info than that I can't help as I am up to my ears in grease on another project.
--
Patrick, '68 220 , '53 GMC 4104, '97 VW Transporter.

Thanks Patrick! I'm downloading those now (dang slow satellite internet!)

I hate to answer a question with a question, but...

What is your plan?

These measurements are not simple, easy things to take with a tape measure, and your detailed descriptions, if one could measure precisely, would vary from car to car, depending on ride height, etc.

And for those measurements that don't change with ride height, why does it matter? Seems to me, you should be able to order the parts and they will work, assuming you order them for your car (year and model, which is a broad range, as they are all about the same from '62-70)

Or, are you planning on custom work? Lowering or otherwise changing the stance? I'm cool with that too, but.. I still don't see how these measurements would help you..

--
-Matt I ♥ my ♂

The measurements are for the physical parts--ideally I would remove them from my vehicle to measure, but I'll have about 10 days at the house and so even if I yank them and order new parts, I'll not see them before I have to go again.

But as for the plan (pull up a chair, it's a long story):
In 2008 I bought a 1965 Volvo 122. It had been cosmetically restored and mechanically hacked.
The previous owner did all the body work to a fairly good standard (welded metal, new exterior panels, etc). He put in a brand new interior with receipts from VPAuto. He put about 10 grand into the car--but he also did a lousy paint job, with overspray all over the brand new upholstery. I don't care about that.

But...he did the same sort of work with the mechanical side. He bought a Ford Focus Zetec engine and mated it to a Merkur T9 transmission, and put it neatly in the engine bay--then totally hacked the wiring and fuel lines. The driveshaft is custom. The rear axle is all but shot, and the drums may or not be worn--but they are cracked around the hub where someone gave up on removing them.

The fronts have new ball joints and bushings. The passenger's side knuckle is cracked at the pinch joint. The lower control arm on the left side appears to have had a stuck ball joint bolt which was pounded through, because the replacement ball joint has 2 bolts only, and a little welded bead along the back "arm" where it should be bolted: the two holes are badly oval shaped.
The rotors are worn thin and one of the calipers is leaking at the join (although that appears to have started while the car was in storage).

Anyway, I have a friend whose father has been doing dirt track racing for years, and he thinks he could talk his dad into building a suspension for the car: double wishbone suspensions are pretty common in that world.

I have a pair of knuckles off a kit car, which are Ford SN-95 (1994-2004 Mustang) with a bolt-on ball joint adapter in place of where there would have been a strut on the original car. The ball joints are probably not the same as Volvo joints. That also gives me access to cheap Ford brakes and rims, which I have heaps of in the garage.

So Chip asked me for approximate sizes of the parts, and he's going to see if they're close enough to anything existing for the dirt track world to allow me to pick through his dad's parts bin. If they're close, they can be adjusted to fit the same way they would on a racing suspension. If they're way off, it's not worth fabricating--I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, just rebuild it with parts on hand. I could buy used control arms and knuckles, new rotors and rebuilt calipers, ball joints, bushings--but at that point, I think I'd just give up. I am not keen to start a whole new parts collection for a car that was supposed to be a daily driver 5 years ago.

Sorry for the long story, but that's where I'm at. Projects are a pain when you're 3000 miles away from them most of the time. :/

If you want to carry on down the custom route, one of the Mustang II front ends could be the way to go. Your friendly dirt track man could base the conversion on one of those. Getting the main cross member the correct width to match the Amazon is the main dimension you'd need to find along with a shape to give you sump clearance.

Hi Derek, that's pretty much what he's thinking, but he was hoping to adapt the control arms to the existing crossmember. If they're close enough to the racing part dimensions, the parts will be free and we'll just have to mount them and do an alignment.

If I have to buy a new crossmember, I'll skip it and work on another project instead...I seem to accumulate them.

What I was REALLY hoping was that the lower ball joint would fit my SN95 Mustang spindle.
Then I'd just need to build a new upper control arm; the bracket that converts the Mustang to use an upper ball joint can be adjusted so the spindle height would be the same as the stock Volvo.