Adjustable Upper Control Arm for '88 Front Suspension

[The Dark Side of Will]

Couple more in-process pics of mine:





I stepped down to 1/2" hardware, which let me use standard clevises on 1/4" plate. That let me use left hand threaded clevises which I can order from McMaster, and keep the rod ends right hand thread for easy replacement.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Waiting for a pair of reinforcing straps to go between the nut plates and the bottom surface of the crossmember.

[The Dark Side of Will]

These are on the car, but I've been lazy about uploading photos. Car's not back on the road yet as I want to get the spherical bearing lowers installed.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Couple shots of the prototype parts in place:







The forward link (left) hits the spring bell, as noted previously. It costs me about two inches of droop travel, though, so I need to change things up to fix that.
You can see from the last photo that if I swing that link out to clear the spring bell, I need to change the angle of the rod end at the inner pivot as well. Sigh.

[The Dark Side of Will]

The clevises where the links attach to the ball joint plate are plated. They're from McMaster and appear to be generally high quality pieces, but they're plated.

I found that MidWest Control has stainless clevises which are similar. MidWest Control has a bunch of AS parts that are built to spec drawings. The clevises look like shorter versions of an AS spec turnbuckle end. I @$$umed there was an AS drawing that spec'd the clevises pretty tightly. There apparently is not. The AS spec clevises are supposed to use pins rather than bolts because they're supposed to interface with cables rather than flat plates. I guess the racing industry found those clevises and "borrowed" them from the aviaton world, bolting the clevises solidly to flat plates to act as static structural members, which is something that the aviation world apparently does not do.

The McMaster clevises have flats on the sides against which a bolt and nut can tighten. The MidWest Control clevises, owing to their aviation background did *NOT* have flats... so... <sigh> off to the machine shop I go.





The MidWest Control clevises also have deeper throats than the McMaster clevises, so I had to tweak the ball joint plate design to accommodate them. I already had to tweak the design for the previously mentioned reasons, so I didn't incur an extra revision just to do this.
The laser guys are out for the holidays, so the updated ball joint plates should come out in January.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Getting closer. Now waiting for the next rev of the ball joint plates to get made, then I'll go get it aligned to see if it needs any additional tweaking.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I was thinking about how I'd secure the brake hoses. Of course wrapping in glass tape and zip tying them to the UCA like Steven did would work.

However, I noticed that it looks like the stock hold down bracket that's installed on the line puts the hole in about the right location to pick up the inner ball joint bolt. The problem is that the bracket is wrapped around the hose in the wrong direction for that to work.

Solution: Install new hoses swapped left for right. SOLVED!

[pmbrunelle]

I was thinking about how I'd secure the brake hoses. Of course wrapping in glass tape and zip tying them to the UCA like Steven did would work.

However, I noticed that it looks like the stock hold down bracket that's installed on the line puts the hole in about the right location to pick up the inner ball joint bolt. The problem is that the bracket is wrapped around the hose in the wrong direction for that to work.

Solution: Install new hoses swapped left for right. SOLVED!

Aren't the hose ends keyed so the only fit into the correct bracket at the spaceframe attachment point? (dunno about 88)

I suppose those brackets could be cut and re-welded to swap them over too.

[The Dark Side of Will]

IIRC, they're keyed to prevent rotation in the bracket. I don't think I ever noticed them being keyed for the side of the car.

I looked around for my replacement front brake hoses... I think those are at my "storage unit" (the garage at my rental property). I need to go snag those so that I can install the new ones with the revised left/right usage. And check to make sure they're not keyed for handedness.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Aren't the hose ends keyed so the only fit into the correct bracket at the spaceframe attachment point? (dunno about 88)

I suppose those brackets could be cut and re-welded to swap them over too.

I know I bought the hoses a while back and have them on the shelf someplace... looks like I'll have to buy them again. :rolleyes:

I saw this on Rock though (AC Delco part):

[The Dark Side of Will]

I decided that the 4" adjusters were too short, so I swapped in the 5" ones I snagged from Midwest Control, completed assembly and put weight on wheels.
Alignment is completely jacked, but I'll see where 6* caster and -1.5* camber ends up before I make any more changes

Curb view:


Wheel well view:


Curb view:


Wheel well view:

[The Dark Side of Will]

I finally got the Storm Trooper aligned. Hitting -1.0 camber and 6.0 caster was essentially effortless. The tech could turn the adjusters from underneath without lifting the car or taking the wheel off.

Views of the left (never bent) side:

The rear leg just touches the spring bell. Since I already know that I need to move the inner pivot back about 1/4" to produce clearance between the inner jam nut and the crossmember, I can produce maybe 1/8" clearance here:



The front leg still touches the spring bell, but if I move the inner pivot forward 1/4" and the outer pivot forward 1/8", I can make clearance here.



Here's the overall thing:



This is NOT a bad clearance situation AT ALL... I need to get a photo similar to this at full droop, but the bump stop plate on the crossmember was very very close to the upper ball joint boot retainer, which is essentially the same as the droop limit on the stock suspension.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I got the replacement right brake hose installed on the left. It was NOT as easy as I conjectured

Aren't the hose ends keyed so the only fit into the correct bracket at the spaceframe attachment point? (dunno about 88)

I suppose those brackets could be cut and re-welded to swap them over too.

Patrick was correct about this

I know I bought the hoses a while back and have them on the shelf someplace... looks like I'll have to buy them again. :rolleyes:

I saw this on Rock though (AC Delco part):

RockAuto was, for better or worse, also correct about this. This body-side fitting has some weird cross-section of a hex with one corner rounded off. The problem is realized when comparing that to the body bracket.



That is not a hex with one rounded corner.
Whoever built those hoses for AC Delco used the wrong dam fitting... apparently on the entire run, since the photo for RockAuto shows the wrong fitting.

Here's the real thing:


I ended up filing the keyed pilot completely round so it would rotate freely in the body-side bracket. I was just careful to tighten the flare fitting so that the twist-telltale stripe on the side of the hose was straight.

Here's the next problem (Remember, this comes from installing the right side hose on the left side of the car):


I solved it by doing this:







Those are actually the real life The Fiero Store replacement slider boots that have done nothing but sit on a car that wasn't driven for the last year. Complete trash.

Ta-Da:



Everything bled fine and worked, so I think I have that figured out, but was out of time to do the right side.

Of course I didn't get a photo of the entire reason I did those shenanigans with the hose, which was to swap the intermediate bracket to a more advantageous orientation for bolting it down with one of the upper ball joint bolts.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I finally got the right side brake mods done over Memorial Day weekend.

Storm Trooper battery was down, despite starting it several times... I guess still not frequently enough. I stole one from the van to use to move it around front for work. Comparison:



So of course GM didn't use handed keying to differentiate the left & right brake hoses. They use *completely different" keying. The hex-with-one-rounded-corner was the ACTUAL OE keying style for the right hose. The wide+narrow key was the OE keying for the left hose. The wide key is at 6 o'clock while the narrow key is ~1 o'clock.



Bracket using hex-with-one-rounded-corner keying for the right side.





I can just knock the corners off the narrow key and it fits right into the bracket... less filing required than the other side.





The flare nut does not pull back from the flare far enough to clean out the annulus and anti-seize the tube-to-nut interface. I had to use some tools and straighten it out far enough back that the nut CAN slide far enough to apply anti-seize.



Here's the bracket secured and at the extremes of steering angle. Of course the bracket doesn't move when the bolt is torqued, and after examining the line at both extremes, I think I need to bias the bracket tab toward the ball joint rather than toward the clevis.





The rear leg already had ample clearance to the spring bell, but the new inboard pivot plate moves it a little further. Now the jam nut on the inboard end clears the crossmember feature to which the inboard pivot plate bolts.



The forward link now has ~1/8" clearance to the spring bell, but the rod end angle is a little weird, so I think I still need another update.



The work of tweaking the brakes is now done. Having done all that, I would recommend instead spreading the center hose brackets and swapping them left-for-right. There would have to be a ~1/8" shim used to separate the ends when re-closing them, in order to make sure they don't squeeze the lines too hard.

With the brake mods done, updating the upper control arm parts for future revisions will be much easier.

I will need to get another alignment to fine-tune the settings at -1.0 camber and 6.0 caster, then re-evaluate clearance to everything.
I installed new ball joint plates AND new inboard pivot plates, as well as anodized adjusters, so I've taken everything apart a piece at a time, hence the need to realign. The rod end angle on the forward link might need a little tweaking. The next rev of the ball joint plate could move the clevis at the outboard end of the forward link inboard in order to increase thread engagement of the clevis and rod-end in the adjuster barrel, which is currently not very good.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Flew back from LA Saturday, as busy around the house Sunday, but got the new components installed on the left UCA on Monday.

Everything went fine... I still need to bleed the RF brake before I take the car in to be realigned.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I forgot exactly when, but my dad had the car aligned. I haven't had the chance to drive it much, but I'll try to soon.
With the spherical bearings in the lower control arms and the adjustable UCAs installed with the associated brake hose mods... it's now good for regular driving status again.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I did... some slight tune up to the parts.
I just had the car realigned.
The tech got to -1.0 camber and 5.9 caster both sides with no weight in the driver's seat.
I held the wheel against the steering lock while he set the toe, so that the wheel was level/straight while the tech set toe.

With my 250# in the car, the left camber went to -1.3 and right camber went to -1.7(!).
I don't remember if we did a caster sweep while I was in the car, but left caster went to 5.6 and right caster went to 5.8. These caster numbers may be wildly inaccurate.
I was not expecting the numbers to change THAT MUCH between unloaded and loaded.

Afterward I realized that the LF and RR tires were low, so that may have contributed as well. Once I inflated them to correct pressure, the car tracks straight with the wheel turned several degrees to the left. Oops.

I am going to inspect All the parts to determine if I need any more design tweaks. With more or less correct alignment verified, I'd like to see 90 degree angles at the rod ends at the inner pivots. I also want to verify clearance between the forward leg and the spring bell at full droop. A final item to look at is that the adjusters are at their half-way points at 6.0 caster and -1.0 camber.

After that, I'll get another alignment with weight in the driver's seat.