dropped axle/steering arm question

[331caddy]

i was messing around at the garage today .... just mocked up the front end on the A bone for the first time and rested the spindles on the 4 inch drop axle it seems that the steering arm will rub on the drivers side when i will make a left turn and the opposite for the other side .... the spindles are 40 ford (cross steer) do i have to heat the arms to compensate for the 4 inch drop in the axle for them to work properly or what the hell is the deal ..... ahhhh the joys of car building !!!! but what the hell else would i be doing right now if it was for those bastard cars


thanks again for all your help getting me through this car
tom

[four-thirteen]

yes. you must either heat up and bend the arms to clear, or cut them off, and make or buy other arms that bolt on to clear. as far as i'm concerned, the stock arms are too short to begin with, and when you bend them down more, they get way too short. just another thing you gotta do when you start messing with geometry on the front end. David

[331caddy]

has any one done a tech on here on steering arms or does anyone have any tips for me on how much to bend ? or would it be eaier to just go and buy new dropped arms ???

thanks once again
tom

[Smokin Joe]

Mine hit the center of the 39 bones so I'm going to use the deep drop Chassis engineering arms. 63 bucks thru PARR.

[331caddy]

i dont have my spindles sitting in front of me they are at the garage ..... do you just weld on the new arms??

[Bruce Lancaster]

Do you have pictures? You say "rubs", not "crashes into", so maybe nothing radical is needed.

[331caddy]

well it wont let the spindle turn any more, and it doesnt seem i would be able to make any kind of tight turn if it rubbed i could just grind some off but i would be grinding through half the spindle to make it not rub in my case

tom

[Smokin Joe]

In my case, I have an axle with the wider space between the perches than the normal aftermarket axles so when it was dropped the new bend put the axle pretty close to the spindle and the stock arm hits the axle. Also, I'm using split 39 wishbones and spring above axle type perches. The arm where the tie rod end goes is about centered with the bone. Those arms above solve both problems. You cut off the old arms and round it with a grinder so the lower part where the arm was ends up looking like the upper boss. Then you bolt those new arms on thru the 2 lower backing plate bolts. They lower the steering rods to pass beneath the bones and as they go below the kingpin instead of around it, they also clear the axle where the old cut off arms hit. Understand?

The other fun thing is that since I'm using the spring above perches on a later axle, I need to have a spring made that's 33.5 inches long instead of the 31.5 inch or shorter springs everyone carries off the shelf.

One more note about the perches. If you use the Speedway longer perches and 39 bones, you can't use the normal lower shock mounts. The upper boss the perch goes thru on the 39 bones is too thick. You could saw off about 1/2 it's thickness and mill in a new taper for the perch shoulder, but a better idea is probably to weld shock mounts to the axle or drill the axle for the bolt on mounts.