EL CAMINO SouthSide Machine rear lower control arms

[83 ElCamino]

Hey everybody, I've got an 83 el camino that I'm trying to install an old pair of Southside Machine Rear Lower Control arms onto. Seeing as I think GForce acquired them, and they are no longer in business, i have no idea how these are supposed to mount up. I've found instructions on ss396.com, but they are contradictory and have only caused me a great deal of confusion. If anyone has these bolted on your car, I'd greatly appreciate pictures of how the rear brackets are drilled/mounted. I'm at the end of my rope with them, and I have a track rental in a weeks time so I'm running out of options.

 

[Rt Jam]

Remove them and put them in the scrap bin.
SSM is probably out of business from fixing peoples control arm mounts. Those arms do not use a pliable bushing. It's literally like an 2" wide bearing in the end of the arm.
There is zero compliance for articulation.

Try some UMI's or something with a roto or ball joint.

 

[bbcolds]

Had a set on my Cutlass and the rear bolts holes didn't line up. Their fix was to force a drill bit thru the mount to move the hole. Bought new lower arms with heim joints and never looked back. Plus they are adjustable.

 

[RabbitHoleSS]

Hey everybody, I've got an 83 el camino that I'm trying to install an old pair of Southside Machine Rear Lower Control arms onto. Seeing as I think GForce acquired them, and they are no longer in business, i have no idea how these are supposed to mount up. I've found instructions on ss396.com, but they are contradictory and have only caused me a great deal of confusion. If anyone has these bolted on your car, I'd greatly appreciate pictures of how the rear brackets are drilled/mounted. I'm at the end of my rope with them, and I have a track rental in a weeks time so I'm running out of options.

They are still in business. I live 5 mins from the shop and just seen them at the gbody classic booth . 3174084272 try to give them a call maybe they can help

 

[bracketchev1221]

I don't remember 100% but you use the lower brackets to drop the back of the lower bar and then you had to put a jack under the front of the pinion and jack it up or down to get your at ride pinion angle. Once you got that, you had to drill a hole in the factory bracket into the plate and bolt both sides in place to keep the pinion angle constant.

 

[Rt Jam]

You can not set pinion angle by drilling holes in the lower bracket.

Pinion angle comes from the length of the 2 pairs of control arms. Upper and Lower.

 

[bracketchev1221]

You can not set pinion angle by drilling holes in the lower bracket.

Pinion angle comes from the length of the 2 pairs of control arms. Upper and Lower.

Maybe the Malibu is different but on my chevelle I did.

 

[scoti]

Maybe the Malibu is different but on my chevelle I did.

The earlier A-body & Metric G-body are the same basic set-up. The dimensions/scaling are different w/the down-sized Metric chassis.

 

[64nailhead]

South Side Machine is very good to deal with. Mac is a very good guy - I spoke to him earlier this week.

If you intend to lower or raise the car (for whatever reason), then a set of adjustable upper and lowers are needed to get the rear in the correct location in the wheel well and to adjust the pinion angle.

And I’m not a fan of drilling out the mounting holes - that will lead to issues at some point in the future.

 

[bracketchev1221]

I found pictures of the chevelle and Malibu setups the Malibu one is different and doesn’t have the ability to change the angle. The chevelle one had a big vertical bracket that touched the front of the housing. If the pinion angle was off you would grind that bracket and it allowed the housing to pitch down and when you got the right angle you drilled an extra hole through the factory bracket and the vertical bracket and it locked it all in place