INFO: Tubular Upper Control Arms

JMS48 wrote: I would also be very interested. Please keep me in the loop.

i was eyeing their site, could not see a ford bolt in ball joint? any chance you gotta part number?

does anyone know where i could find taller upper ball joint for the littleshop a arms?

Bought a set of the LittleShop A-arms.  Excited to get them on the car.  I decided not to do the coil over setup and stick with CVPI springs.  Thanks for the input.  This forum is a wealth of info

Good pics...I knew the rear was a custom 4 link set up (i believe it was from Art Morrison).

That was helpful for the front lower arm.  They boxed the LCA but I didn't realize that the mount was different from teh stock shock style.   I have seen that you can buy off-the-shelf mounts and brackets.  That may be an option....here is a reference
https://www.ballisticfabrication.com/collections/coilover-shock-tabs

This looks interesting for the rear...
https://www.cachassisworks.com/site_images/58XX/5824-XXX/5824-A10/5824-A10_weld-on_PRKR.jpg

All require some welding and modifications to the mounts and arms.

Yup...have to reinforce the mounting area.   The pure vision torino used stock lower arms; reinforced the mounting area for coil-overs.   There are some pics somewhere on the internet where you can see some of the work they did for reference.     

yup...your right though...definitely need to strengthen up that lower mount

Very cool....this is the first coil over kit I've seen for the 72+ Torino.

How do they compare with Vari-shok coil overs?

Thanks, it's great to hear some feedback.  We were able to get somewhere around 4 or 5 degrees of caster with stock arms, so I am assuming these once could go well beyond that if one desired?

Just a quick note here... since I am selling the Ranchero, I swapped the little shop arms over to my Torino and then aligned the car. They weren't kidding...those arms gave me 5-6 degrees of caster. I do a lot of highway driving back and forth to work, so more caster is very welcome. I must say, the car feels much more stable at 70-80 mph, and the biggest difference is it no longer twitches to one side or the other over bumps at speed. 

I did not get any directions with my arms, and I have a 73. I did not notice anything special about using the 73 shafts, they worked fine.

Question for those who've used these or know something about this.
I'm quoting from Little Shop's instructions
"Please note that there are 2 different lengths on the factory cross-shafts for these cars. The shorter cross-shaft (72 and
early 73) will leave a small amount of thread unused in the end of the nut. It is preferable to use the longer cross-shafts
if possible."

Would using the longer cross shaft on a 72 cause any issues? Would using the stock 72 shaft cause any issues?

Not sure why I am asking, but since I am working again I can't get these arms off of my mind. Might make a good Christmas present.

Thanks,
Russ

I would think that Hotchkis Galaxy parts bolted on and worked on our cars that they would advertise them as such. Would really increase their sales I'd imagine.
Hoping to be proved wrong, but I can't be the one to finance the experiment though.
Russ

Yup...already bought the CVPI springs sitting with my pile of suspension parts waiting for install.  I'll take you advice...try it out first then decide.  I'm holding off finishing the suspension until I'm done painting the car.   

I'm prolly overthinking it...Analysis paralysis...

Every sway bar I've looked at to "adapt" has not worked out because of the overall width of the mounting points on our torino's.   If you dont land near the same realative mounting points with the "new" bar it causes other interference problems.   That said...I measure stock eye-to-eye front sway bar at 49 1/4", arm length ~12", frame mounts speration at ~38 1/2".   I haven't found anything that will come close.   I did find some more modern bars say from a 2002 camaro or late model charger but the mounting are completely different where they dont use the same stud through an eye on the bar end mounting configuration.

EDIT If my memory serves me...I think the Galaxy bars are 48" eye-to-eye center which is to far off to be able to reuse on a Torino.  I keep coming back to a custom splined setup for the front.

I always felt teh body plows to much in the turns...I want to control the body roll more to help limit the suspension range under compression to optimize the camber gain.  If you add to much rear bar it will oversteer like crazy...I've already tested this with bigger rear bar and stiffer rear springs.  That backend breaks loose way to easy around a corner.

 Trying to keep the balance front to rear I wanted to control it more with the front bar rather than the rear bar.   I've already put the 7/8 rear bar on...and I feel it helped overall but it made the back end break loose quickly relative to the overall body roll.  

Thats why I'm thinking a good overall combination would be a 1 3/8" front with the 7/8" rear.   If you look at what some suspension kits offered for chevelles (The are not exact but pretty close in size/weight to our car. I did a analytical comparison via spreadsheet between chevelle/torino for comparison between springs/bars and basic suspension geometry) they tend to be in this ballpark for performance street setups.

Oh...also regarding cutting welding up sway bars.  I dont think that it would be a good idea to do that because they are made from spring steel.   Heating it up would wreck the properties of the steel.   Sway bars are also (or should be) heat treated.   Any heat applied would ruin them.

Double up sway bar!  didn't think of that.  How did that work?  


Edited by BackInBlack - 22-June-2017 at 8:58AM