Re: Swapping A-arms from left to right, and flipping them?
Heres the actual discussion, now that I read it alittle closer, he uses tubular a-arms from a newer fullsize Chev pickup. I think he mentions that they are alittle longer than the factory ones.....
My keys were so rust-welded into my t bars and those were so stuck into the lower control arms that I could not get them apart. I had helped a buddy flip his keys and swap the upper A arms left from right and put them back on up-side-down for ball joint angle and camber, So I knew how low I could go before all kinds of mechanical problems occured. So heres what I did:
- Removed t bar adjuster bolts
- Jacked up t bar keys by puting a big long Grade 8 bolt through the hole that's in the center of my floor jack's lifting platform
- Removed threaded blocks
- Drilled through the dipple that the adjuster bolt sits in in the key
- Replaced blocks, but above the keys
- Put bolts back in but with a washer on them just in case they don't start to ware against the keys and weaken them were I drilled the holes
- Removed front bump stops
- Done!
This gave me around a 5 inch drop from the factory 4X4 height with the bolt tighten up all the way. On a 16X8" rim wrapped in 245/50ZR16 rubber, it looked to me just a bit lower than a Typhoon factory hieght. I was very happy with this until I test fitted my 18's and was very dissappointed at how high it went back up. So then came step 2:
- Get '91-'96 full size chevy or GMC 4X4 1500 series upper control arms
- Bore out the ball joint holes in the tops of the spindels to accept the larger stud
OR
- Make adapter plates using the stock upper's ball joint holes as a template so that the S-10 ball joints can bolt to the big truck's uppers
- Replace the full size upper's bushing with some that will work with the smaller S-10's camber bolts
(I believe I used '86 Monte Carlo / '93+ full size van bushing, sleeved with a nylon spacer and then a brass pipe to take up the slop)
- Bolt the ball joints and / or adpater plate (weld) to the wrong side upper but up-side-down. This is to get rid of the dramatic angle that would be on the upper ball joint at such a drop
- Replace the stock shocks (too long) with some cheap ass little ones that belong on a VW Rabbit or any other ones that use the same bushing ends. The ones I got from Either Advanced or AutoZone cost $9.99 each and are 7" compressed and 11" extended.
- Done Now adjust the bolt as loww as you want untill the bottoming out becomes unbarable If you cut out or grind off the platform that the bump stops used to mount to you can get it down to about a 9" drop. You also have to watch where the drive axles hit the support of the rearward upper A arm mounts. I'd cut it all off and be done with it!
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I dont remember whether the uppers or lowers wear quicker since it lowered?? I do know that Im replacing one of them once a year.
Heres the link to the post....
http://forums.s-series.org/viewtopic.php?t=274
