Rear traling arm/mount questions, racer-gurus, comment! Options

[Brando]

Friday I dropped the teener off for new tiars and 4-wheel alignment. My rear-right is having issues matching the rear-left. At first I thought I may have a bent trailing arm, but Aaron and I think that the part where the trailing arm meets up to the ears/mounts may be ovaled out on the passenger's side, in-board towards the engine.

My understanding is that you just weld it up and drill a new hole that's the right size, then have it re-aligned... But I don't want it to oval out again. Is there some sort of extra bracing or support I can put in there to prevent this... without having to swap my rear traling arm or machine it. Does anyone have some small bent pieces of 1/8" or ¼" steel that I could weld right in there for extra support? I plan on dropping the engine within the next month or two for a 1911cc conversion and I've got a shitlist a mile long for "while i'm in there"... But this might be a major issue if left un-attended, and I would like to prevent it from happening again.

Any suggestions are apprecieated... except for cutting it out and going with a complete monoball/heim join setup with custom traling arms ... i plainly don't have the cash for that-- as enticing as it is. Thankyous!

[pek771]

As I just pulled out my trailing arms yesterday, cut out the right side suspension console, and just disassembled the trailing arms, I have this observation:

It looks like a washer can be welded in and you would still have enough engagement for the nut on the inner stud. I have a rotted suspension console on the left side also which I will need to fab a repair for, and weld on a washer. I have no choice but to repair this, since a right side suspension console doesn't seem to be available. Looking at the construction of the ear portion of the suspension console, I can see how ovaling of the hole could definitely present a structural problem.

I'll go take a picture of the cut up suspension console and post it, or put it on the link in my signature.

Pat