80 Malibu brake/steering/suspension upgrade

[clean8485]

Looks good. Keep an eye out for any contact between the wheel and the upper control arm through out the entire range of motion of the wheel. (loose bolt the arms/spindle/steering arm in place without the spring)

15X7's should be fine, but 15X8's might hit the upper arms turning at some suspension articulations. 17X8's and larger should also be fine.

There is lots of room for a tall lower balljoint, but the tall upper puts the arms close to the wheel when turning.

Thanks UNGN. That's one of the tings that I want to keep an eye out for as I put the car back together. Do you think there would be any issues with a standard ball joint?

 

[UNGN]

Smaller diameter 8" wheels can be a little tricky in front. The ideal back spacing for fender/inner fender clearance can cause rub on the upper arms/outer tie rods.

Wheel backspacing/width/diameter and brake choice all matter and should be evaluated for everyone's individual application. The rule of thumb is there are generally no issues 17" wheels or larger, but for 16" wheels or smaller, I would recommend taking out the spring and checking for clearance for clearance under the whole range of motion.

Looking cool is hard work. If it was easy, everyone would look cool.

 

[clean8485]

Thanks again UNGN. The 8" rims have pretty much the same back space as the 7" rims that I had before. I am aware of possible clearance issues though. I want to have a good look and check the clearance as I'm putting it back together.

 

[UNGN]

4" or less BS on an 8" limits the size of the front tire on a lowered car, especially when you upgrade to larger brakes, which tend to push the wheels out more than the stock brakes.. More the 4" fits the fenders better, but can start running into suspension issues.

 

[clean8485]

Thanks again UNGN.

 

[fleming442]

Also, make sure the caliper doesn't hit the control arm at full lock. That may only be an issue with drop spindles.....

 

[clean8485]

Thank you fleming442. I think that UNGN has a good idea regarding assembling the front end without the spring, then checking clearance through the entire range of motion of the suspension. I will take your idea as well though, and not connect the steering linkage, so I can swing the steering back and forth and check clearance that way as well.
I got the control arms and the rest of the hardware off this morning. Still have to get the steering box off yet. Then comes the task of getting things cleaned up and detailed before I start to reassemble things.

 

[ed1948]

I'm surprised there is much to consider when making a suspension improvement. I'm learning something new.

 

[clean8485]

I'm still plugging away at the job. With some help from my son, I got the steering box off the car today. The lower control arms that I'm putting on the car came with new ball joints, but they weren't installed. Took them to work this week, and with the help of one of my co-workers and his ball joint press, they're now installed. I'm trying to get some of the smaller bits and pieces cleaned up for reassembly. I wanted to get the front frame rails cleaned up as best I could, then paint them before starting to put the car back together. Originally, I was just going to leave the inner fenders in place, and work around them as best I can, but after talking with a couple of friends (thanks Ed), I pulled the right side inner fender this evening and started cleaning up the frame rail on that side.

 

[clean8485]

Hi guys. sorry for the delay on this post. Sometimes, other things in life come first.
Anyway, I got the front frame rails painted, and I started installing the front suspension (upper and lower control arms, and front springs). I did some test fitting of the front suspension and brake components, as UNGN had suggested, and installed one of the front wheels, to check for clearance, and everything looked good. Things went pretty smoothly until I went to install the front springs. I'm using Moog 5660 springs that have had 1 coil cut off, that I got from a friend, and even with 1 coil removed, I couldn't get the springs to seat at both top and bottom, so I could jack up the lower control arms to compress them. I though about trying to get my hands on a spring compressor, but I've seen safety issues with them, and I wanted to try to avoid anything like that. In the end, I took the springs to a spring shop, and had them compressed, then they installed steel banding on them (similiar to the bands you see holding large items on shipping pallets), to hold them in the compressed position. This process worked much better. I was able to install the springs easily, then cut the banding material off, once the springs were installed and had some tension on them. I'm working on getting the rest of the parts cleaned up and detailed, and there is some reassembly happening now. More to come...