Modifying my front control arms this weekend

Spent way too many hours today staring at and moving my front suspension around.  Goals are to improve the end link attachment and add both the bump stop and a steering stop to my ART coilover style Lower Control Arm.


First thing I played with was sway bar location relative to the LCA and the end link. I know rentedmule is running a shorter end link, but I was not able to bring the sway bar any closer to the LCA without interfering with the travel of the steering arm. Given this was all at max compression and max steering angle, but they definitely collide there. Setting it up to clear puts me exactly at the same height as the stock end link, which means the 2006 2wd F150 is a good fit, but how are you guys with shorter end links getting away without running the steering arm into the sway bar?

This is probably where I should admit that my alignment is not setup at all. On the passenger side I've got the arms flat on the mounts with no shims. This could have an effect on things?

Took a measurement and picture with everything in place. This definitely demonstrates the extreme angles we get in our end links. 

   

I'm tempted to leave as is, but playing with the one ball joint end link I do have I don't think it really has enough deflection to account for it. Especially with the holes being way egged out from factory style end links plan is to make up a new tab and reposition to better suit the range of motion of the end link.


I was originally planning on using a fixed steering stop, but after playing with the suspension so far I'm thinking an adjustable stop is best that way I can tune it in as I find situations I didn't think of or change up wheels, tires, or who knows what.  Has anyone seen someone else make an adjustable steering stop? My best idea, currently is a bolt through a lock nut into a threaded hole I weld onto the control arm with a gusset or two. It should work fine, but curious what other ideas are out there.

As I was writing this up found this: http://www.pro-touring.com/threads/87201-speedtech-lca?highlight=steering+stops

Speedtech thinks it is cool/safe.



I've also noticed while cycling the suspension and steering through different positions that my extra wide wheels are rubbing on the UCA at full droop. Definitely already brainstorming how to build a nice droop stop into the system. I'm sure Ryo has some input here, but how much droop should I allow for? Obviously don't want UCA/wheel collision, but the number in my head is 3" droop right now. It would match my 3-4" compression that I have currently, but do I need even that much?


Lastly, I'd really love to drop the truck another 2". It would put the wheels just about where I want them as well as lower the CG. I had been thinking of grabbing drop spindles and then matching the rear to the front by raising the leaf mounts. That all got shot to hell when I found a pile of threads pointing out that the drop spindles do not play well with wide wheels. The tie rod and the rim end up trying to share the same space. Flipping the tie rod to the top of the steering arm creates more headaches with the sway bar, although I may check to see if I can sneak it underneath in that configuration. I remember Robert playing with tie rods and heim joints to improve bumpsteer several to many years back. Anyone remember what he did or if that would even help me? My other thought was to build a bracket to move the tie rod end an inch or two inboard, but would have to investigate how that affects steering geometry before jumping in on that. I could definitely tie into the hub bolt and the existing tie rod hole in the steering arm, but might want to make it a bit more beefy than some simple sheet metal.


That's all for now. I wanted to get all my thoughts out before I slept on it. Thanks ahead of time for any input or references.

I don't have much useful to add, other than I'm watching this thread with interest.

I managed to run shorter endlinks by just not checking whether or not the swaybar ran into the steering arm... I will check that.

Drop spindles only seem to interfere with 17" wheels IIRC, so if you're going larger than that, I don't think you'll have an issue. bbcc (used to post here every now and then) used heim joints to address this issue and correct bumpsteer on his blazer. I haven't been able to find the thread detailing that but I think it's on s10f somewhere.

My Spohn LCAs have a 'static' steering stop which is just a cube of steel welded onto the tube. I don't see why you couldn't use the bolt idea to make it adjustable.

your arms look like the sway bar mounts are further outboards on the arm, good for motion ratio, sucks for packaging as you've noticed.

I see no flaw with the adjustable bolt steering stops as long as the forces are fed into the arm well. you can get quite a bit of force multiplication there.

as for droop travel, 3" is pretty good for a start, the more you have the better control you'll have though. i'd try to keep it adjustable to get as much as you possibly can.
my rx7 probably didn't have 3" of droop. having less droop is a bandaid for bad shocks too, but don't go down that route!

moving the tie rod point inwards just affects ackerman, but if you go too far you run the risk of going overcenter which might kill you, so definitely be weary of that.

you can always shorten the steer arm length like the drifters do, obviously this changes a lot of things but might be easier than moving the arm inboards.

If you dig on the blizazer shelf you'll find a box of poly bump stops. Some might be installed on slapper bars there as well. Variety of heights. Feel free to use those for droop stops on the suspension, and swap out heights as needed.

Yay for quick replies. I'm still out at the shop today and working at it.

The drop spindles are definitely an after the truck is on the road item. Any modifications or mockup could be done over a weekend. Al has a set on his Blazer, so at some point I can definitely mockup my wheels and see how they fare. It looks real tight even on the 18's. Actually it would be as easy as bolting up a wheel. hmmmmm add that to my easy todo list.

Rented please do check for me. I'm curious why this hasn't been seen before. I've seen and heard of lots of shortened end links. I am at full compression and full lock when I see it, but the relationship, in theory, will stay similar throughout the range of motion. I'm starting at the extremes and working backwards here to make sure everything packages before welding it all up.

The droop situation is kind of an oddball as it would be an outside corner during a turn, so a rarity to actually happen, but if I can keep parts from crashing into each anywhere in the range that is going to be best.  I'll at least try to minimize it.

I'm going to order up end links and tie rods this week and put off final fabrication until next weekend, but will be checking out a few more things today.  Will definitely be flipping the tie rod on top and see how that packages with the sway bar. That could really get the end link short, but on fence if that is what I actually want considering how much the bar end and mount move away from each other currently.

I turned up a few answers in the last 2 days. Still have some left and have some decisions to make namely what I want to do for tie rods.

The tie rod, steering arm, and sway bar relationship does in fact change quite a bit during travel unlike what I was thinking the other day.  At full compression they are all right on top of each other, but as the wheel travels downward the tie rod and steering arm pull away from the sway bar quite rapidly. Considering the interference only happens at full compression and steering angle it shouldn't be a surprise it doesn't come up more often. I'm still curious how it looks on a truck with shortened end links, but I ordered up the 2006 F150 end links anyway and that's my direction.

With that said swapping the tie rod on top of the spindle, from my perspective, looks like a strong no go. At full compression the tie rod would be completely through the sway bar and switching the sway bar underneath the tie rod would have it bolting, pretty much, directly to the control arm. That will not work because of how much the relationship between the two changes throughout the suspension travel.

As I write this I realize I did not take any good pictures of these parts. Next weekend? haha

You can see how far down the tie rod hangs at full droop in this picture if you zoom in.




Drop spindle is still a strong maybe.





The pictures are more optimistic than reality. There is less than 3" from the bottom of the spindle to the wheel. I will definitely be putting one of these wheels on Al's truck next weekend to know, with certainty, how bad it is with the drop spindle and factory tie rod.

Moon509 over on S10f got drop spindles to work with his long arm setup and 18" wheels using the same heim joint setup that BBCC, Sean, and Robert have discussed at various points.



He did have the stud's taper machined down to fit further into the spindle as well as cutting down the heim stud significantly. Sean drilled out his spindle to fit a 5/8" bolt if I understand correctly, but I'm more wary of modifying the spindle to a point it can't use stock components rather than modifying the replaceable parts. But I also don't have a machinist in my Rolodex. Either way it does reportedly gain that extra bit of bump steer elimination that the tall LBJ doesn't quite get.

BBCC's thread from s10forum: http://www.s10forum.com/forum/f307/how-to-heim-joint-outside-tie-rods-635649/

Sean has more information in his thread: http://www.pro-tourings10.com/index.php?topic=1072.msg11234#msg11234

Robert talks about his in this thread: http://www.pro-tourings10.com/index.php?topic=852.0

And pictures in his thread: http://www.pro-tourings10.com/index.php?topic=541.msg6552#msg6552

F150 links fit nice with just rotating the tab down the control arm tube something like 30°. Probably would have been fine with the original location, but the hole was larger than I liked on top of being egged out from the factory style end links. Some angle down toward the outside of the control arm could have helped more with the endlink Balljoint angle, but there is plenty of movement in the joint to account for full suspension travel.



I'm really liking the steering stop too. Might have been able to drill the side of the control arm tube and weld a nut in like the Speedtech arm I found, but it would have been close depending on the suspension location in the travel and I wouldn't have had as much adjustment.



I did grab some shots of the tie rod movement. Pictures didn't  turn out as well as I'd like, but I think it gives a better idea of how much displacement the outer tie rod has and how close it gets to the sway bar at full lock.

Bottom



Top



Lastly I threw one of the wheels on Al's Blazer and go figure the damn thing fit fine to the tie rod with drop spindles. I'm about ready to pull the trigger on some drop spindles as they will help the UCA clearance to my wheel too.

Ugg, my blazer is so neglected!

Looks like your endlinks are tilted top out at top and bottom of travel, is that true in the middle as well? If so, can your new bottom tab be tilted out to match?

Looks like your endlinks are tilted top out at top and bottom of travel, is that true in the middle as well? If so, can your new bottom tab be tilted out to match?

Certainly, it might not have been the clearest description, but that is what I was talking about here:

Some angle down toward the outside of the control arm could have helped more with the endlink Balljoint angle, but there is plenty of movement in the joint to account for full suspension travel.

It works fine, as is, throughout the full travel and then some, so I don't feel like going through the effort of cutting and grinding the tabs again. It's a good FYI for anyone else doing this in the future.

this might be a good time to re-investigate using a modified 4x4 upright instead of a drop spindle:P

First reaction: no. That is outside of current project scope.

Are you thinking 4x4 to push the wheel out and get more towards 0 offset wheels? I remember some discussion on using that knuckle, but I do not remember the benefits.

it's been a while since i thought about it.... like 7 years?
but it was a tall spindle, shorter steer arm, bolt-on hubs.
I don't remember if we decided it would provide much if any offset change

Wasn't there some discussion about the 4x4 hub needing the CV shaft through it for support? Could a 2wd blazer hub be made to fit?

It would need it from my understanding. I'm sure the 2wd hubs could be adapted somehow, but I already have that with the Blazer spindles haha

Wasn't there some discussion about the 4x4 hub needing the CV shaft through it for support? Could a 2wd blazer hub be made to fit?

i think I tested harley's 2wd bearing on a 4wd upright and the interface was a bolt-on.
i never measured offset to see if it was the same though.

I think i have some 4x4 uprights sitting around somewhere if you wanted to check it out

A bit of a frustrating weekend overall as I didn't end up with the arms finished up for powdercoating (and forgot to upload pictures on top of it all). Bumpstop brackets are done and turned out well enough for the constraints I'm working with and for not having to weld anything more.  You'll have to wait until next weekend for pictures and a description of that.

Part of the frustration was removing those stubborn poly LCA bushings. If someone knows how to remove them without destroying them I'm curious for the future, but they weren't in tip top condition anyway, so time to improve. Seems like they're stock size, but confirming that with RideTech as we speak.

I'm thinking of going Delrin. Any other opinions? This truck will see some rough roads unfortunately due to the workshop location, so I'm not keen on steel. Ryo are you up for putting your lathe to work? I'm pretty sure you said in one of the threads I was reading through earlier that any hack with a lathe could whip up some delrin bushings hahaha

Talked with RideTech and they used the same bushings before as they do on their StrongArms now.

8x 90001085   Front LCA  Bushings   @ $4.00
4x 90001089   Rear LCA Bushings      @ $4.00
2x 90000516   Rear Bushing Sleeve   @ $4.00
2x 90001094   Front Bushing Sleeve   @ $5.00

For a total of $50

Mentioned that I was thinking of making up some Delrin pieces and he looked up their offering for the S10 bushings.

8x 70010759   LCA Bushings   Delrin   @ $7.00
2x 90000572   LCA Bushing Sleeve      @ $8.00
2x 90000573   LCA Bushing Sleeve      @ $13.25

Total for all of that is $98.50, so not an unreasonable option.

I have delrin bushings in my LCAs and have no complaints. No idea if they helped anything but at least they're quiet.

Where did you get your bushings from? Came with the arms when you purchased them?

It was an option from Spohn when I bought the LCAs