Has anyone ever made their own adjustable lower control arms? I'm having some problems with positive camber, which I'm pretty sure is in the frame. The Racing Beat ones would be nice, but would cost me about $550 to get to my door.

Even if I have to take them into a machine shop it should come out to alot less than that. Also, are tie rod ends difficult to replace? I'm pretty sure I have the gear puller for it, but I know now that some things just aren't worth tackling without a lift or air tools.

Thanks.


George.

 

I can't really talk to the first question, however, I do have recent experience with the second one: tie rods.

tie rods are pretty simple, actually. Best to replace the inner and outer, as well as the sleeve all at once. Ditch the gear puller, and get a pickle fork. Use the pickle fork and a hammer on the tie rod ball joints and remove the whole thing (both ends and the sleeve) as a unit. Put your new ones together so that, end-to-end, it's the same size as the old one (yes, count the threads on the sleeve), and then re-install. Shouldn't take you too long at all.

I did mine with just a 2-ton jack & jack stands, with old-fashioned hand tools, a $10 pickle fork from Advance, and a Craftsman torque wrench. No big deal.

Make sure to get new cotter pins and try to buy tie rod ends with grease fittings.

HTH!

 

Thanks man.

That doesn't sound too bad at all, and I already have the pickle fork.

 

Holy Cow, since when did the 1st gen section start moving this fast, lol.

 

If you have camber problems and you want to fix them, other options are:

1. straightening the car / strut assy

2. slotting the strut tops / adding a camber plate

I think either one of these would be cheaper than the adj. lower control arms.

 

The strut tops have already been slotted as far as they could go. The caster/camber plates would probably cost the same as the adjustable control arms, plus the cost of machining the struts. If it gets to the point of putting the car up on a frame rack I'll probably actively start looking for a clean shell, as I imagine it would be expensive. However, with the way things are going I'm going to get some estimates on having that done.

 

try it out. im sure no one has done it, but i like the idea.

also, you slotted the strut tops for camber? as in part of the body? i thought of doing that a while back, but i didnt want it to screw up the car if it didnt work as well as i planned. any pictures?