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  #791  
Old 09-23-2018, 06:57 PM
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Good to see everything will fit together as before with the new ARB!
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  #792  
Old 10-03-2018, 11:34 AM
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So the sway bar end link tabs are now secured to the lower control arms.

Remember...I am NOT an accomplished welder...

I spent way more time making sure that these welds were strong than making them look pretty. Hindsight, I should have busted the lower ball joints loose and dropped the arms down for the final welding, this would have made getting into the tight spots a WHOLE lot easier.

These are the tabs that came with the sway bar kit.



As you can see they are designed to weld onto a round tube. My Ridetech True Turn arms are square out toward the ends where the tabs needed to go and I also wanted to get the tabs as high as I could to keep the endlinks from being lower than the dropped shock mounts.

So I picked up some pre-fab tabs from a local shop that were not only meant to weld onto a flat piece but also just a bit longer to give me a bit more room to work. I notched the tabs to put them higher on the arm as well as move the inside tab back to help with overall alignment. This placement lets the rod ends on the end links travel without bind full bump to full extension.





I cut a plate for the back side of the tabs that were above the lower control arm and welded it to the tabs as well as the arms for additional support.



I'm fully confident these are plenty strong to support and effort the wway bar puts on them.

While I have the lower arms exposed, I decided to try to fix up the steering stop. The arms have a stop designed to work with the stock G-Body spindles but the ATS spindle misses it.



This picture is pretty close to where I need the spindle to stop.



All of the extra Ackerman that came with these spindles puts the back of the inside front tire into the frame pretty significantly at about 27 degrees steering angle. It isn't noticeable under most circumstances but did come into play pretty harshly at the Good Guys autocross event.

I was hoping to be able to just modify the stop already there but it looks like my only option is to just weld a new stop onto the arm closer to the ball joint and further in on the arm. That is today's project.

Then I'll move forward with attaching the tube to the frame and final placement of the rest of the sway bar. The shocks are away getting tweaked so I'm not really in a hurry. They should be back sometime next week and I'll be ready for them by then I hope.
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  #793  
Old 10-03-2018, 01:29 PM
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Is the suspension at full droop in the last photo?
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  #794  
Old 10-03-2018, 01:33 PM
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Yeah, it's in full droop in all of those.
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  #795  
Old 10-04-2018, 01:49 PM
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I'm really struggling with if I really want the head of the steering arm bolt to be what hits the steering stop on the control arm. I'd rather it not but there just isn't that much room for anything else to be what hits a stop.
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  #796  
Old 10-04-2018, 02:02 PM
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I think I know what to do here... This is the stop as it currently sits.



This is where it goes when the back of the tire touches the frame.







I'm thinking I need to get some steel the same thickness as the current stop and butt weld it to the stop extending it the length I need it to be. Thoughts?

Hardest part might be deciding just how far to extend it... And the welding it well enough so it doesn't break off of course...
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  #797  
Old 10-07-2018, 06:35 PM
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Well, that worked out pretty good actually...

Found some scrap steel just a touch thinner than the stop on the A arm, cut it to size and butt welded it onto the end extending the stop about the thickness of my finger.







Can just fit my finger between the edge of the tire and the frame at full lock now.



Left a little wiggle room for tire deflection just in case. I must say, it is going to be nice being able to turn to the stop without having the tire dig into the frame once again...been YEARS since I could do that.

Now onto mounting up the tube portion of the sway bar...
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  #798  
Old 10-08-2018, 12:08 PM
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I also found something else during this project. The steering stop on the pass LCA was "bent" a little bit and the side of it hit the steering arm before the end of it hit the spindle. This was limiting the right hand turn enough to keep the tire off of the frame (also limiting how sharp it would turn to the right).

Since I did all of my measuring and mockup for the stop extension on the driver side, and then just duplicated for the passenger side, you can imagine my surprise when after paint was dry...I put it all back together, put the wheel on and could put my arm between the tire and frame at full lock.

It took me a bit to figure out was going on...tried to make it turn more by grinding down the end of the stop with no success. Finally took a BFH and bent the stop toward the caliper bolt just a bit and BAM...tire is back to just a finger's width away from the frame.

All of this should have been done a year ago when I put the new spindles on but I just didn't have the time then. The new ATS spindles changed just about everything in regard to suspension travel and tire placement and things just haven't been playing nice together ever since. Finally got the contact patch geometry back to where it needed to be (actually WAY better than before) now I've finally got the suspension travel and tire placement to where it'll all play nice together once again. This is why I waited so long to do the brake upgrade...I knew I'd have to redo everything that I had worked so hard on getting right with the old spindles.
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  #799  
Old 10-09-2018, 06:05 PM
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Got a little metal work and mock up done today... I must say it is pretty nice to be able to raise and lower the ride height with the tires on the ramps and the jack under the cross member. Sure helped when trying to make sure nothing is binding anywhere.

Modded the angled stands to make them straight stands and cut the tube to length and have it set where I think it needs to be.





These show that it really doesn't hang very low at all and I think looks pretty dang racey.

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  #800  
Old 10-09-2018, 07:06 PM
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Just an old welders "tip" -- clean all your metal to BARE metal -- BEFORE you make marks and set up stuff -- that way it's ready to tack without moving stuff.

That bar looks like bare metal but it's not -- it needs to be shiny brite clean metal (ditto the standoffs) and wiped with brake clean (NON CHLORINATED - or the phosgene gas will kill you). I prefer Acetone....

You'll be shocked at how much better your welds will come out. And when you tack -- crank up the heat so the tacks get some penetration or they just become weak spots in the weldment.
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