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   What's New?
 
  02/01/13 - Reformatted web page.

 

Upper/Lower Control Arms

Here is a shot of the upper control arms assembled. It took me awhile to find all the parts since they are in various boxes.  Here are the pertinent notes:

  • Long arms go onto the threaded tab of the ball joint cup.

  • Tabs on the ball joint cups point towards the rear to clear the shock tower

  • Clevis goes on the end of the short arm and connects to the tab

  • Be sure to use some Blue Locktite (if you are doing final assembly) on the ball joints and the bolts that hold the long arms to the mounting brackets

It is important to note that the HEIM fittings are tightened down so that they are not clocked to one side or the other.  They should be straight up and down when tight.  If they are not, they will wear prematurely.  Mine are loosey goosey for now since I'm not in final assembly.

Also I noted that some builders have felt that the ball joints provided fit a little too loosely in the fittings.  I agree with them.  The fix to this is to order some replacement Moog parts and I plan to add those to my next part order.  I will swap these out once I get them.  For now, they will do just fine for rolling around the garage.

Before mounting the upper control arms to the frame, I mounted the mounting plate to each side.  I used the longer bolts in the lower holes to align the part while just snugging down the shorter bolts.  Once I was sure of the fit, I tightened everything down and pulled the longer bolts.

Here they the upper control arms installed on the left front of the frame on the mounting plate.  The mounting bolts are left long so that spacers can be installed if necessary to adjust the outward alignment of the upper control arm.

Here are all the parts for the lower arms.  The Delrin bag contains the inserts and the steel sleeves that slip into the pivot points of the arms.

There is a bag of spacers that you use to adjust the position of the arm forward and back.  Note that the longer bolts are used on the forward pivot point.  This is a picture of the left front looking at it from inside the engine bay.  To start with, I installed just a thin spacer on the short (rear) bolt.  According to Brian, you want the arm as far rear as you can so the front wheel will clear the wheel well properly. 

You will have more spacers than you need.  I just stuck them on the end of the bolts, in front of the nut for now.  I'm not sure if they are used later for something else or not.  The steel sleeve is slightly longer than the Delrin bushing.  That is to provide a shoulder for the Delrin washers to slide up on.  Make sure you have these parts in alignment before tightening down the fastener.

Here's another shot of the left front.  Note the tab on the upper control arm towards the rear and the extra spacers mounted under the nut on the front bolt of the lower control arm.  Note that in this picture, the mounting plate for the upper control arm is not installed on this picture.  Ignore that.  This picture just helps to show the orientation of the arms.

Shocks

Dig out the bag of fasteners for the front shocks from the box along with the 350 springs and shocks.  Note that there are two sets of springs.  The 350's go on the front and the 275's go on the rear.

I followed the instructions that came with the shocks.  You will need some anti-seize on the threads of the shock body and bottom washer per the instructions.  I set the shocks to their softest setting and compressed the spring hand tight.  Be careful inserting the clip rings that hold the inserts into the mounting holes.  It is easy to think they are in without them fully snapping into the groove.  I had to tap mine with a screwdriver blade to make sure they clicked into the groove.

Install it on the frame using the fasteners provided.  Make sure you orient the shock correctly top and bottom (ask me how I know).  Also mount it so that the adjusting knob in towards the inside so you will be able to reach it from under the car.  The instructions say to use washers as spacers for mounting the shocks.  Well, I didn't have enough of them so I went to the hardware store and bought some hardened ones to use here.