When installing spacer to upper ball joint i install from bottom of arm not the top like normal. Is that safe and secure to install from bottom? Oem replacement install from top of arm no spacer.
Sure, the spring load is on the lower arm, the upper arm is basically just a follower and serves to keep the spindle upright/vertical and in alignment.
I was going to ask the same question. You aren't changing the effective spindle height, as the two ball joints are still the same distance apart, so there's no suspension geometry benefit that I can see.
Oldsmobile and yea its modified with a lift. Cheap fix instead of buying some control arms tublar. Thats my next step if spacers dont work but the way its looking they might have been a good choice.
What do you mean by a "lift"? Using these spacers is a general bad practice. I haven't seen them used in the past 35 years except for nostalgic class drag cars.
How many shims are there at the upper arm? Removing them makes your camber more positive (top of wheel moves outward).
Spacers appeared in the late sixties/early seventies to let the front suspension react/raise on acceleration. They are very hard on upper A frames and front end alignment gets complicated..:spank:
Back in the day, I removed many of the things, along with broken upper A arms and destroyed ball joints..
:thumbup:
Howe and QA1 make a rebuildable Low Friction BJ. Along with the extra range of movement you can put just about any length stud that will get you where need to be.
No shims.. you are at the maximum that the arm can come out and you have lost any means to adjust the caster as well.
So you're looking at an aftermarket set of a-arms. I know they're available for stock cars, forget which way they went. Look at some race car sites that provide parts for IMCA stock cars, Speedway carries lots of IMCA parts. The hot ticket used to be using Impala a-arms on Chevelle or metric chassis stubs since they were stronger.
I might respectfully submit, that once you're operating a suspension system that far out of the parameters it's intended to operate in, you might consider moving to an appropriate re-engineered system. Straight-axle?
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