In to have some lunch.

The fittment is going fairly well.

Slop is NOT a problem....many fits are tighter than hell.

My A arm shafts are prolly bigger than most at 1.421.
The hardened sleeves (inner race) ID is 1.421, but as they are a bit out of round (not unusual with a thin sleeve) it makes fitting dicey.....once they are started on, you're committed. Let's just say they are never coming off in one peice.

The same was true with the aft brg holder. Those are way out of round due the goodie welded to the side of em. That took some doing:

We did get one side together.
Including running over hell looking for tools, removing the poly bushings, and some serious haid scratching, I have bout 3 hours into this. We are here:

I haven't installed it on the car yet.
If anyone has any specific Qs or pic requests, ask now.

Oh, one other thing. There is enuff movenemt in the thrust brg rollers/cage to take all the slop out. A .002 feeler gage won't go.....Yeehaw.

Back to it

Hey JP,

Glad to hear that things are working out with the install.

How much extra welding did you do to the OEM bearing carriers??

Why did you weld them in the first place?

My phone has not rung yet with someone on the other end cussing me out so that is a good sign

If you look at the pic of the one I had to press in, that is the rear holder. I did no welding on it. The support that the mounting bolt goes thru is the welded on the goodie. It distorts the crap out out of the round bit.......our little talk
about fitting precision pieces to the sheet metal bits.....remember?

The arm shafts are really close to no-go. I test fitted all the sleeves. Some would slip most of the way on, others took some doing. The one end that was a problem did go on (emory cloth on the shaft), but expanded when pushed over the shaft. The roller brg nearly didn't go on over the sleeve......it was really close. No hammer work there If it hadn't gone, I'da been screwed.

I'm gonna have to charge you for making me sweat blood
and I'm only 1/4 done.

Hey JP,

Should I start including a hammer with the kit

My biggest concern was the inner race being too sloppy, i figured it was much easier to remove material than replace material on the a-arm......I think you'd agree on that one....

I know Brad has installed a few of these kits and so has Tony, I'm waiting for them to chime in and give me thier feedback. For the one test fit I did here at home, everything fit nice. I did have one sleeve that upon sliding onto the a-arm removed some of the paint from being on the tight side, but that was only a few thou worth of paint....no big deal.

Since the factory rubber bushing conform to the a-arm shaft, I'm sure the tolerances could have been all over the board as they came from the factory.

for the rear holder, I thought you did some extra bracing for some reason or re-did the welds as you did on your a-arms...my bad..........

I'd gladly change places with you right now, I'm in the middle of replacing the valves and seats of my toilets at home :toilet:



Mueller

I knew I should have sampled more arms for that dimension

I'll have to spring for a couple of beers now for your extra work

I'm down to trying to get one sleeve on.

Removing material from the A arm is not easy, believe me.
I've been fighting it for about 1.5 hrs.....I'm about to go after the shaft with power tools
This last one has about .0015 interference.
As I said before, it there is too much interference, the sleeve actually expands and the fit on the roller brg is very, very tight. The actual size of this shaft end is 1.4215/1.4225......but it's gonna get smaller.

I did get one side on the car. The excentriciry of the shaft cause a slight bind....best fit...,but it only takes 2-3 lbs of pressure to move the arm....way better than the 30 or so for the polys. I'm sure it'll wear in a bit and loosen up.

Hey Guy's, Yes there was a little difficulty in installing the kit due to the non-roundness(if that's a word) of both the a-arm and the cup. However I liked having the part fit a little tight. The kit took about 2 hours to install on a car that already had poly bushings. I hear from Brad it is lots of fun to remove the rubber bushings, like you may have to resort to this !

-Tony

Done!
I got brutal with the shaft and took my die grinder after it.....with the proper abrasive, of course.

Second side fits nearly the same as the first.

It would have been a snap if the inner races (sleeves) had fit more better.....ie: no interference. Prolly took 2-3 hours to get them all on. I don't suppose that my shafts are the biggest (OD) out there. They were up to 1.4225.

I have a set of arms with the rubber still in them. I'll pull em' apart tomorrow and pass the OD info along to Mike.

Other than that gud job, Mike.

I'll take them tight every day. I know I can remove material from the area the sleave slips on. Its when they are too loose that I have to start over with another control arm. I test fit Ron's sleaves and found them tight.. again. Dont touch them. Most people will have worn out arms.

Now. The cups could be a different story. We may need to come up with something that is round and can be pressed into them to help make them round prior to pushing the bearing holders in. Tony had to "push" and use more force than I would have liked to do the last set.

Thoughts:

B

Actually, once I got it figured out, it worked fine....see pic.
In this case, the outer race is stronger than the "cup" (gud wurd). The main problem was that the race would initially cock in the cup. Put it under pressure and a slight tap with a model 16 hammer and it squared right up and went in easily. If one has a decent press (I don't), it would be a snap.

The sleeves, on the other hand, were a bitch. If the OD of the shaft is too large and one forces them on, they expand.
Then the needle brg is a stinker to got on......no hammers here. I had to "screw" one on, working it back and forth.
Heating or cooling does no good here. The sleeve will still expand over the shaft.
That's when I decided "the hell with this" and got out the die grinder with the scotch brite discs.....then rounded it off with long strips of emory cloth. Had I done that sooner, It wouldn't have been such a PITA.....of course if one has a boring mill.......

If the shaft is too small, it can be "painted up"....as much as .004 or so. Zinc chromate or etch primer.....don't really matter, they are neither round nor concentric to start with.

The bidness ends of the shafts are not concentric.This shows up when the assembly is installed on the car.I have some very slight binding that I couldn't get out.

I guess that's what you have to live with when you put a silk purse on a sows ear.

BTW, I don't think the arms "wear" unless the rubber is totaly shot, in which case, the arms are "toast"