custom LCA's on the T/A
 

well this morning i was at work, and there happened to be a 8.5 rear out of a trailblazer laying in the bay beside me. i happened to look at the LCA's on it and started wondering if they would fit. well after inspecting i figured out they were about half an inch too long, i ground the front and rear holes and ran larger bolts for strength and to take up the slack. worked perfectly! didnt take any installed pics because my camera sucks, but here is comparison side by side.

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q...MAGE_00007.jpg

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q...MAGE_00006.jpg

Hmmm......

-Rick

Thats kinda neat. I ended up building my own out of 4130 chromolly tubing with i 1 5/8 in diameter with about 1/8 wall thickness they're within about a 1/32 of each other and with the stock ones, my next make is subframe connectors, ill post some pictures when im done.

the pics show them no justice, they are pretty damn large... they do what tubular lower control arms are supposed to do, and for FREE! cant beat the price, ive been plundering around gathering parts to tinker with. i want to attempt to compile a list of parts that can be found at junkyards or fabbed for little to no money and do the same job. ill keep you guys posted

So can you explain in more detail what exactly you modified? I'm not quite following what you did :\

I was just going to weld a long piece of 1/8" steel to the open bottom on mine, but this might be a better solution.

Formula350, I had a pair of stock arms with the bottom welded shut and they worked great. Only thing is the rubber bushings are still soft so These were replaced with polyeurethane bushings that can be purchased from any performance shop or a few suspension places online! Although you'll need a press to remove the old ones. But they work great! I actually sold them to a friend for $25.00 after having them listed for sale on here for 3 days. He seen them laying in my pile of junk and snatched them up :devil: Just thought I'd mention that they DO work! Good Luck Man!

James

I actually have Poly's for them. The LCA's I bought for my 91 came with them, so I never used my Energy Suspension ones.

formula, i took the stock lca's off of a trailblazer 8.5 rearend, the holes were about a half inch too long so i ground the holes to fit the larger bolts from the 8.5 rear. ill try to shoot a few pics in the am to show what i mean, or at least draw it out in paint. haha

What's confusing me is stuff not adding up. Like what holes are too long, and how are they too long? Long is front to back, and no bolts on the LCA go front to back. Only thing I can figure out that you mean is too wide, which is side to side, how the bolts pass through the LCA and the parts on the body. If it's too wide, then some grinding would take care of that, but then I don't understand how grinding would help for bigger bolts. Drilling is what helps accommodate something larger.

the f-body factory bolt is smaller in diameter than the trailblazer factory bolt. when i said too long, i meant the lca's were a half inch too long. i had to open up the holes on the factory mounting locations to fit the larger bolts and after opening up the holes on the brackets the arms werent too long... ill take a pic tonight

If you oblonged the hole to fit the Trailerblazer LCAs, that's not something I'd want to do.

i guess if you want to look at it in that sense, i would have drilled, but because of the location you cant get a bit in there. sorry for the elementary paint drawing but my camera is down...

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q...6/Untitled.jpg

ok i get what your saying now...

you ground out the holes on the car to the outide edge of the mounting plate which gave you just a little bit more length to use on the car to where you could use the trailblazer lcas. and they would fit in there without moving the axle any farther forward or back

Yea that helps more. I was under the impression that the LCA and bolt had room to slide around due to making the bolt hole bigger.

oh hell no... sorry for the length of time to clarify, my f-ing camera is a pos... out to the trash it goes!

what would have happened if you used the bushings for a f-body in the trailblazer rearend?

the fbody bolts are smaller than the trailblazer bolts. the control arm would move around in the mounting bracket

yeah i know... but would the bushing in the fbody LCA's fit in the trailblazer LCA's?

heh I knew what you meant, curious with that too.

sorry, i misunderstood what you asked. i will take a look tomorrow if i get a chance