John from Opentracker got back to me. The UCA is salvageable with the roller kit. Woohoo! That's $200 that I don't need to spend now!
I'll be ordering the roller kits this weekend for UCAs and LCAs. I'll take pictures and stuff as I make the mods.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Maybe not as bad as I thought.
Something I had decided I was going to do a couple of weeks ago is install roller bearings in my upper and lower control arms, spring perches, and build an adjustable strut rod with a heim joint. The instructions for the roller perches is on Daze Cars, who also sells a kit with all of the parts. Also on Daze's site are instructions for building adjustable strut rods.
Opentracker Racing Products sells kits for the roller bearing conversion for the upper and lower control arms.
The damage from the welded UCA bushing I posted earlier greatly concerned me. My initial thought was that the arm is scrap, so I would be spending another $100 or so to get a new one. I know from my research that to install the roller kit in the spring perch you cut out the old center tube and install a larger one, so any damage to the old tube does not matter since it will be replaced. So I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, the same process is used to install the roller kits in the upper control arms, making the damage I found irrelevant.
I called Opentracker today and spoke with John, who I believe is the owner. I explained my situation to him, and he said it probably would not be a problem since the installation is very similar to the roller perches, in that the holes in the UCA are enlarged to 2" to fit a tube to hold the new roller bearings - the damage I have will be cut away. John offered to make an evaluation of my arm if I would send him pictures, which I just did. The pictures are below.
If John says it looks salvageable, then I will be ordering his roller kit and start getting the suspension back together within a couple of weeks.
Big sigh of relief.......
More to follow.
Opentracker Racing Products sells kits for the roller bearing conversion for the upper and lower control arms.
The damage from the welded UCA bushing I posted earlier greatly concerned me. My initial thought was that the arm is scrap, so I would be spending another $100 or so to get a new one. I know from my research that to install the roller kit in the spring perch you cut out the old center tube and install a larger one, so any damage to the old tube does not matter since it will be replaced. So I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, the same process is used to install the roller kits in the upper control arms, making the damage I found irrelevant.
I called Opentracker today and spoke with John, who I believe is the owner. I explained my situation to him, and he said it probably would not be a problem since the installation is very similar to the roller perches, in that the holes in the UCA are enlarged to 2" to fit a tube to hold the new roller bearings - the damage I have will be cut away. John offered to make an evaluation of my arm if I would send him pictures, which I just did. The pictures are below.
Big sigh of relief.......
More to follow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)