Upper A arm

[weedave]

After a weekend out at our local off road area I decided it would be a good idea to dislodge a shim or three and have my upper A arm rattle the two chassis connection bolts loose and have it collapse.

Any how these things happen...

I was hoping for some ideas on making shims redundant but so far all I have come up with it use new shims to align the Arms then remove then and machine a solid ring spacer to replace the shims?

Thoughts welcome and pics to follow.

cheers
Dave

 

[makeitfit]

Too much like hard work that. Just use washers or shims and then threadlock the bolts .Make sure you torque them up, they need to be pretty bloody tight

 

[elty001]

I'm looking at getting some heavy duty upper control arms made at work and my plan is to have the ball joint mounting slotted so the camber is adjustable there rather than on the shims.
Don't think you will be able to do away with them completely as they are also used to set the castor angle.

 

[weedave]

Too much like hard work that. Just use washers or shims and then threadlock the bolts .Make sure you torque them up, they need to be pretty bloody tight

upon further inspection the threads are shot to at least 3/4 of the depth of the bolt hole chassis - I cant re-tap these as the small cross member in the A arm doesn't look as if it would take an enlarged hole size drilled through it. I've been speaking to an engineer who can heli coil the thread and we can stay at standard fittings. MY concern using the shims is that the are an open construction that allowed the problem to occur so at the very least I'm going to use a closed construction, be it a washer or solid space.

 

[weedave]

I'm looking at getting some heavy duty upper control arms made at work and my plan is to have the ball joint mounting slotted so the camber is adjustable there rather than on the shims.
Don't think you will be able to do away with them completely as they are also used to set the castor angle.

I like to sound of the HD upper, I've seen a set on another T2 out here that must be from USA or something, they looked tougher than the originals. I'm currently trying to track down the owner to have a yarn.
I'd greatly appreciate having a look at what you come up with regarding the A arms.

 

[makeitfit]

I had one bolt that spun out once torqued up. I re-tapped that and went up a bolt size no problem :nenau
I also reset my camber and thought I was cheating by cutting a slot out of a washer just save me undoing the bolts all the way :lol
Good luck

 

[elty001]

I like to sound of the HD upper, I've seen a set on another T2 out here that must be from USA or something, they looked tougher than the originals. I'm currently trying to track down the owner to have a yarn.
I'd greatly appreciate having a look at what you come up with regarding the A arms.

As soon as I get the project off the ground I will post up on here.
Was hoping to be further along with it than I am but work keeps getting in the way :lol

 

[weedave]

I had one bolt that spun out once torqued up. I re-tapped that and went up a bolt size no problem :nenau
I also reset my camber and thought I was cheating by cutting a slot out of a washer just save me undoing the bolts all the way :lol
Good luck

Did you re-size the hole on the arm cross member? cheating works for me!!

 

[weedave]

As soon as I get the project off the ground I will post up on here.
Was hoping to be further along with it than I am but work keeps getting in the way :lol

cool, works always in the way