Sorry, I read the post wrong.  Maybe I'll get it right one of these
days.

              ...Ron
--
68'RS Camaro
88'Formula
00'GT Mustang

Thanks, guys.  This is just a replacement for an extremely sloppy, worn
pitman arm.  An outfit sent me the longer one (the only one they sell;
a reproduction) after I asked them to measure it and they told me
5.25".  They must have measured stud center to hole edge instead of
hole center.  I was trying to save the hassle of sending it back.  It's
going back because of the warnings from you guys.  I just ordered a
Moog K6151 pitman arm from Summit after Moog confirmed it was 5.25"
long.  The Summit catalog, though, shows this as fitting 5 vehicles,
none of them a '69 Firebird V-8 with power steering.  I've found nobody
with a pitman arm listing for this car, and I've checked more than a
few.  I was even told that the reason for this is that '69 Firebirds
used a pitman arm with no ball joint on it (thus it's a non-wearing
part) and a center link with the ball on it instead.  (The one I'm
working on is not such an oddball.)  I came to the conclusion the Moog
K6151 matches my old one after reading the extensive webpage
http://www.pozziracing.com/camaro_steering.htm#Steering_linkage.

It's funny the range of advice I saw on this subject when I did some
more looking.  Ranging from warnings like you guys gave me, to "it'll
work just fine; all the replacements are that long anyway," to "it'll
give you faster steering - a good thing."

Thanks again.