Front Spring eye mounting bucket wear

[alnoe]

Last night, I disassembled my '67 Camaro which has an air ride triangulated 4 link, and Afco coil overs, which I put in the car several years ago (I think it was maybe the first kit sold by air ride where someone used a coil over).

The odd thing I noticed, is that in th past year when I would launch the car hard, I would hear a "pop" noise coming from the rear suspension.

When I disassembled it, the front spring buckets, which the lower control arms attach to (they run from the rearend u bolt mounting pad up to the front spring eye bucket) had the bolt holes "ovaled". The bolt hole I am referring to runs through the side of the spring bucket, and through the front lower control arm bushing. This allowed about 1/8" of slop for the lower control arm to move around. The only thing I can guess is that due to the repeated loading and unloading, a slight amount of play over the years and through the abuse I have thrown at it led to the bolt slowly wearing on the hole.

The bolts were tight when they were removed from the bucket, so nothing loosened up.

To Air Rides credit, their parts looked excellent, and everything seems to have held up well. Nice stuff!

The spring buckets were new when I first built the car, about 12 years ago and 20K miles. With the air ride 4 link, the car has about 10K miles.

Has anyone else seen this problem? I am asking because to fix it right, I am thinking it needs to have the hole bored out and some type of bushing/spacer installed on each side of the bucket which would provide more surface area than the bolt running through the thin, stamped spring bucket.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks
Al Noe

[Randy67]

Maybe the bolt used was slightly undersized compared to the hole so it slowly opened the hole up. You could always use thick washers and weld them to the bucket to reinforce the hole.

[parsonsj]

You could always use thick washers and weld them to the bucket to reinforce the hole.

Hey Al! I was going to suggest the same fix as Randy. Get 1/8" or 3/16" thick washers, bolt everything up, tack weld the washers, then disassemble and finish welding. You don't need to weld all the way around for strength, but it's probably a good idea to keep water from getting trapped in there.

jp

[alnoe]

Thanks John and Randy

I think you are right-probably the easiest, quickest solution.

John-are you going to PRI-if so, please stop by-booth 2191.

Al

[Skip Fix]

Or a little larger bolt, even metric if needed. Fastenal has a bunch of different bolts and nuts in all grades.

I swapped my 79 Camaro's LCA bolt from metric to standard, partly for the same reason hole slightly larger, plus I hate half standard/half metric fasteners on a car.