need a dimension

Is here anyone that can give me an acurate dimension of the distance between the 2 rear bolts of the lower control arm shafts ?

If at all possible the dimension between the hole in the inner side of the side rails of the frame (round hole at the nr 3 and 4 body mounts) towards the rear bolt, respectively left and right one.

Seems like i will be replacing my left lower control arm bracket :suicide:, so i need some acurate dimensions of an undamaged frame with unreplaced brackets.

Thanks many times.

Don't know if this helps but with VBP lower arms, I am getting 16.25 center to center. I'm not following the other dimension you need.

BB,

I guess i should have been clear. I'm talking about the dimension between the rear bolts that go through the shaft. I need this since i need to replace my right bracket.

Thanks many times.

Hard to measure with the holes on an angle and even more difficult with the arms mounted. What about getting the measurement from the front mounting holes? The rear dimension should be the same as the center of the two bolt holes (side to side)?

This assumes that the shaft is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the car, which I think it is.

BBShark said:

Hard to measure with the holes on an angle and even more difficult with the arms mounted. What about getting the measurement from the front mounting holes? The rear dimension should be the same as the center of the two bolt holes (side to side)?

This assumes that the shaft is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the car, which I think it is.

Click to expand...

If it is absolutely parallel i can measure the distance from the center to the left bracket. Will try that.

Thanks

I saw the picture you posted showing the position of the rear shafts.

I assume you have found that one is OK and the other is out of position? If I were doing this, I would cut the bracket off, bolt the new bracket to the arm cross shafts and make the center to center (in the back) the same as the center to center of the front. Just use the cross shafts to jig them in place, tack them, remove cross shafts and weld up.

I was planning on doing something along those lines. Apparently someone was in there before me. The bolt hole was enlarged outward, they even shaved the washer. Bubba kind of repair. I measured the bolt head in a cross pattern on both sides and that checked out. Anyway only can blame myself for not noticing this earlier.

The thing is that the new brackets don't come with holes for the bolts. So the have to be position after welding and correctly..

I've got the frame jigged up right know. I just praise myself lucky everything else seems in place. I'll keep you guys posted about progress, but right now it's not exactly fun in the garage. I'm almost freezing my butt off. The welding of this thing has to be done on the floor and when i go lying on the floor I almost freeze up instantly.:crap:

Belgian1979vette said:

I was planning on doing something along those lines. Apparently someone was in there before me. The bolt hole was enlarged outward, they even shaved the washer. Bubba kind of repair. I measured the bolt head in a cross pattern on both sides and that checked out. Anyway only can blame myself for not noticing this earlier.

The thing is that the new brackets don't come with holes for the bolts. So the have to be position after welding and correctly..

I've got the frame jigged up right know. I just praise myself lucky everything else seems in place. I'll keep you guys posted about progress, but right now it's not exactly fun in the garage. I'm almost freezing my butt. The welding of this thing has to be done on the floor and when i go lying on the floor I almost freeze up instantly.:crap:

Click to expand...

I have a slick thick rubber mat material about 2'x4' size that I slide on when under a car, and it's not all that bad on the insulation, I also use a old mattress cover padding, takes the worst of the chill out.....

I dunno if bowling is popular in Europe, but that was the source for my rubber mat, got from a guy who worked at a alley....:beer:

mrvette said:

Belgian1979vette said:

I was planning on doing something along those lines. Apparently someone was in there before me. The bolt hole was enlarged outward, they even shaved the washer. Bubba kind of repair. I measured the bolt head in a cross pattern on both sides and that checked out. Anyway only can blame myself for not noticing this earlier.

The thing is that the new brackets don't come with holes for the bolts. So the have to be position after welding and correctly..

I've got the frame jigged up right know. I just praise myself lucky everything else seems in place. I'll keep you guys posted about progress, but right now it's not exactly fun in the garage. I'm almost freezing my butt. The welding of this thing has to be done on the floor and when i go lying on the floor I almost freeze up instantly.:crap:

Click to expand...

I have a slick thick rubber mat material about 2'x4' size that I slide on when under a car, and it's not all that bad on the insulation, I also use a old mattress cover padding, takes the worst of the chill out.....

I dunno if bowling is popular in Europe, but that was the source for my rubber mat, got from a guy who worked at a alley....:beer:

Click to expand...

Well, we had some rubber mats for the truck our horses were put in, but they are outside under a lot of dirt right now. Have to check. Besides being smelly they're probably frozen solid to the ground right now :lol:

Belgian1979vette said:

mrvette said:

Belgian1979vette said:

I was planning on doing something along those lines. Apparently someone was in there before me. The bolt hole was enlarged outward, they even shaved the washer. Bubba kind of repair. I measured the bolt head in a cross pattern on both sides and that checked out. Anyway only can blame myself for not noticing this earlier.

The thing is that the new brackets don't come with holes for the bolts. So the have to be position after welding and correctly..

I've got the frame jigged up right know. I just praise myself lucky everything else seems in place. I'll keep you guys posted about progress, but right now it's not exactly fun in the garage. I'm almost freezing my butt. The welding of this thing has to be done on the floor and when i go lying on the floor I almost freeze up instantly.:crap:

Click to expand...

I have a slick thick rubber mat material about 2'x4' size that I slide on when under a car, and it's not all that bad on the insulation, I also use a old mattress cover padding, takes the worst of the chill out.....

I dunno if bowling is popular in Europe, but that was the source for my rubber mat, got from a guy who worked at a alley....:beer:

Click to expand...

Well, we had some rubber mats for the truck our horses were put in, but they are outside under a lot of dirt right now. Have to check. Besides being smelly they're probably frozen solid to the ground right now :lol:

Click to expand...

:shocking: Can't help you there man.....:tth:

Probably just a tolerance thing combined with the difficulty of measuring the rear. By my best effort I measure 16 1/8 inch center to center at the front bolt and 16 1/16 at the rear bolt.

Also found a missing front cross shaft mounting bolt so my measurement was a good exercise.

Not so cold in California and it's on a lift. Sorry man, look at the bright side the beer is better.

Grampy said:

Probably just a tolerance thing combined with the difficulty of measuring the rear. By my best effort I measure 16 1/8 inch center to center at the front bolt and 16 1/16 at the rear bolt.

Also found a missing front cross shaft mounting bolt so my measurement was a good exercise.

Not so cold in California and it's on a lift. Sorry man, look at the bright side the beer is better.

Click to expand...

:clap:

Just a short verification is this the bolt threaded in the shaft of the bolt that goes through the shaft and mounts the shaft to the frame in the rear ? I need the dimension because i'm going through the trouble of replacing the bracket and need to locate that bracket exactly.

Belgian1979vette said:

Grampy said:

Probably just a tolerance thing combined with the difficulty of measuring the rear. By my best effort I measure 16 1/8 inch center to center at the front bolt and 16 1/16 at the rear bolt.

Also found a missing front cross shaft mounting bolt so my measurement was a good exercise.

Not so cold in California and it's on a lift. Sorry man, look at the bright side the beer is better.

Click to expand...

:clap:

Just a short verification is this the bolt threaded in the shaft of the bolt that goes through the shaft and mounts the shaft to the frame in the rear ? I need the dimension because i'm going through the trouble of replacing the bracket and need to locate that bracket exactly.

Click to expand...

I will jack the car up, and take dimensions off my car tmrw Am .....so PM me for the reminder....we go back and forth on PM or email, to make it easier/quicker....figger east coast USA time....

:beer:

the dimensions I gave were CL to CL of the bolts in each end of the cross shaft that hold the bushing caps. As you can imagine the rears are very hard to get to because of the steering linkage.

Did you want the CL to CL of the large rear mounting bolt? I can only get a dimension from the bottom of the cross shaft and those bolts run at an angle so you would have to trig the measured distance back to the frame. I measure 16 3/8 Cl to CL.

Grampy said:

the dimensions I gave were CL to CL of the bolts in each end of the cross shaft that hold the bushing caps. As you can imagine the rears are very hard to get to because of the steering linkage.

Did you want the CL to CL of the large rear mounting bolt? I can only get a dimension from the bottom of the cross shaft and those bolts run at an angle so you would have to trig the measured distance back to the frame. I measure 16 3/8 Cl to CL.

Click to expand...

:thumbs: If i replace the mount i will bolt the bolt back in and measure from the underside. I ordered my mount, but some of the other pieces are on backorder.

Received my parts this week and started working on this some more.

However when measuring everything again, i'm still not completly sure if it is actually the left bracket or the right one which is at fault. (i would think the left)

Does anyone here know how far the flat surface of the top rear bracket is from the center of the rear bolt in the spring tower (where the Arm is mounted on ?)

Thanks

Belgian1979vette said:

Received my parts this week and started working on this some more.

However when measuring everything again, i'm still not completly sure if it is actually the left bracket or the right one which is at fault. (i would think the left)

Does anyone here know how far the flat surface of the top rear bracket is from the center of the rear bolt in the spring tower (where the Arm is mounted on ?)

Thanks

Click to expand...

As I PM'd you, best I can determine with a fully assembled car is from center to center on the REAR end bolts that hold the bushings in place, on the A arms....that is 9.25" on my car....:mobeer:

Thank Gene, I absolutly appreciate your help with this.

Anyway, it seems difficult to measure the distance from the top A-arm bolt. I mounted just the shafts in the bracket without torquing them down. I already knew there is something amiss with the right bracket. It turns out that the right shaft shows a gap between the shaft with only the front bolts torqued down at the brackett of about 3 mm (1/8"). The distance from the top A-arm bolt toward the center of the shaft is al over the place : left is about 245 mm (with the gap) and right (completly seated in the bracket) is about 250 mm (reference value as per TT's measurements is 240 mm). When measuring the height of the backets there is a difference in height left to right of 10 mm. Kind of strange if you think that when measured with the suspension mounted, the left rear bolt was exactly at 240 mm.

The distance measured from the chassis centerline is also different. The right one seems to be spot on (Grampy told me the total distance between the bolts is 16 1/16 which equals 203,99 mm). The left one was shorter (pointing inward)

As said before I suspect the left bracket being out of whack, but the distance from the uper A-arm bolt makes both brackets suspect....hmm:huh2:

What I don't understand is, that a frame chart like per workshop manual lists all kinds of measurements, but none for the front dimension pickup points.

For the good of everyone that has to deal with this later. I got this info from Mashinter over at CF.



In this drawing it is clearly to see the lower A-arm pivots are not angled to the ground, just sitting flat.

This got me thinking and when looking at a frame drawing as per workshop manual you can see that the bottom surface of the front crossmember is also parallel to the ground.

What I did, was jack the frame up in the rear to get the bottom of the front crossmember level and guess what ? The left bracket came out ok, as I suspected from the beginning. Now i only need to replace the right bracket :waxer:

In this position i also checked the distance of the right shaft towards the middle of the chassis. It turns out the inward angle of this shaft towards the center of the frame is the same as that of the upper arms, about 5mm on each side.

Belgian1979vette said:

For the good of everyone that has to deal with this later. I got this info from Mashinter over at CF.



In this drawing it is clearly to see the lower A-arm pivots are not angled to the ground, just sitting flat.

This got me thinking and when looking at a frame drawing as per workshop manual you can see that the bottom surface of the front crossmember is also parallel to the ground.

What I did, was jack the frame up in the rear to get the bottom of the front crossmember level and guess what ? The left bracket came out ok, as I suspected from the beginning. Now i only need to replace the right bracket :waxer:

In this position i also checked the distance of the right shaft towards the middle of the chassis. It turns out the inward angle of this shaft towards the center of the frame is the same as that of the upper arms, about 5mm on each side.

Click to expand...

GOOD, sounds like a solution to me, :nuts::trumpet: