Lower Control Arm Re-engineer

[rickpaw]

I'm having the exact issue with my GW uppers on my 67 Firebird. May have to look into the arms from PT F-body. Just like you, hate to have to spend on suspensions twice.



BTW, what is the back spacing on your wheels. They look great.

Tu

[AintQik]

Well don't ask GW, it will be your fault. I can not promise just changing the uppers to Dave's stuff will fix it as I changed mine out as a complete system which was designed to work together. ridetech coilover, L&H spindle, Daves upper and lower. However, if you want to talk to somebody who has lived this for the last year shoot me a PM. I can probably help make sure its in the arms and not something else. Off the top of my head I think my fronts are 4.8". The fit absolutely perfect now.

If you still have you stock upper, try it with the current set up.

[rickpaw]

Thanks RJ. I sold my uppers on CL years ago. Will send you a PM.

[BMR Tech]

I had this issue on a friends 68 Convertible a few years back (see pic below). He had GW arms also. There was so much positive caster that the wheels would hit the back of the wheelwell when turning. At the time I just attributed it to the vehicle being odd and ended up running a crapload of shims on the front A-arm bolt to pull some caster out of it. With the wheels that were on the car at the time I was only able to get about 3.5-4 degrees of caster. I think GW just puts too much caster into their upper arm instead of splitting it between the upper and lower. Splitting the extra caster between the upper and lower arms helps keep the wheel centered in the wheelwell while providing extra caster. This setup might be fine for a 69 with the larger wheel openings but the 67 and 68's tend to have issues when lowered and using 8-8.5" wheels, as you and I found out.

You mentioned that the tire came out at the top when the suspension compressed. Just to clarify to you and others reading, that is not an A-arm problem. The caster issues are definitely A-arm related however this is a camber problem which is related to the spindle geometry. Stock height spindles actually make positive camber before they go negative. You were able to correct this by using the LH tall spindles because you corrected the camber curve, not because you switched the A-arms. Anyway, glad to see you got it taken care of and nice car btw, love the wheels and stance!

[AintQik]

Yes. I have mentioned in other posts the GW advertised to me personally that their set up corrected spindle geometry as well. At the time I thought their spindles would help based on info given by the salesman. Obviously I know better now. When I stated I fixed that problem using the other spindles I was really commenting on the other issues for the few following my saga. That was a good clarification for anyone who is searching and comes across this thread. Dave actually made a split exactly as you describe to fix the caster, the spindle fixed the camber issue.

[rickpaw]

I had this issue on a friends 68 Convertible a few years back (see pic below). He had GW arms also. There was so much positive caster that the wheels would hit the back of the wheelwell when turning. At the time I just attributed it to the vehicle being odd and ended up running a crapload of shims on the front A-arm bolt to pull some caster out of it.

that's exactly what I did. I put so much shims up the front bolts that there were little, if any, threads protruding out of the nuts.

Tu