Lower control arm rebuild

[big66440]

I took apart my control arms today (pivot pin,and bearing sleeve,lower ball joint) and started cleaning them up, I started doing research on Mopar lower control arms and found out they're quite fragile,I spoke with someone from Firm feel wile ordering my greasable pins along with the urethane bushings and even they warned me to check them out for straightness they said I should be able to "eye ball",does anyone out there have any experience with this situation?maybe a few tricks on how to blue print these things? I want to make sure they're ok before I go any further.

 

[Cranky]

First I've heard about that.....but you should check them anyways. Abuse is what usually screws them up or being wrecked. Maybe someone can post pics of a good one. You can buy a kit to modify them yourself for hard cornering etc. They will flex a bit when you throw the car into hard cornering etc.

 

[Coronet 500]

Boy I don't know about fragile, I cut two of them to weld in plates for balljoint steering knuckle change on the front we're building. Those things are high carbon, hard, hard steel and those rivet are made of indostructium.

 

[68sportsatelliteragtop]

I would start by laying them side by side and compare the angles of the LCA mount to the ball joint pivot, then the straightness of the arm itself vs. the other arm. If they are an original pair they should mirror each other.

 

[big66440]

Well,I compared them side to side and they look good I guess I can be a little too picky sometimes,thank you guys for the input I guess I'll do center to center measurements and grab the good ol magnifying glass,,,maybe not that but I'll eye ball them closely.

 

[TheGodfather]

LCA's in B-Bodies

Well,I compared them side to side and they look good I guess I can be a little too picky sometimes,thank you guys for the input I guess I'll do center to center measurements and grab the good ol magnifying glass,,,maybe not that but I'll eye ball them closely.

Great Minds think alike? I just removed my lower control arms over the weekend. Bushings are completely destroyed as this old Mopar has >100K on it. I was thinking the same thing as you.........the LCA's do look alittle flimsey to me so I'm considering sending them off to FirmFeel for reinforcement and new Bushings. They are probably strong enough for normal driving but, for Drag Racing; I'd feel safer with stronger LCA's. Let me know what you decide to do with yours. Thx

 

[GTXKen]

You can buy or make reinforcing plates for the CLAs, it make a pair and weld those on before bolting them back on the car.

 

[Cranky]

They are probably strong enough for normal driving but, for Drag Racing; I'd feel safer with stronger LCA's. Let me know what you decide to do with yours. Thx

Drag racing? There's no pot holes or rough roads at most strips and you don't have to worry about hard cornering unless you like taking the first turn off....or hard landings from big wheel stands and then even ones that are reinforced won't fare too well from that. The game for drag racing is strong light weight parts, not heavily reinforced parts. The weight of my 66 Belvedere was 3370 before going on a diet down to 2950 and a lot of that came off the front end. Also, think about all the cars that are around 4000 lbs and still use the same front end parts. Just because 'mom' didn't build their front ends to resemble the huge A arms of a lot of GM cars doesn't mean they are weak. If you want to see weak, check out a mid 60's Mustang....

 

[big66440]

I already have the reinforcing plates from Mancini, I'm just gonna reinforce them,sand blast them,and have the hotchkis sway bar brackets welded on them since mine don't have them and put them back together with new bushings (polyurethane). I brought up the subject because a few of the suspension components that came off of my car were damaged and I figured since I'm going to replace the UCA's with brand new tubular stuff it would be great to have as many "fresh up to date" components as possible.