Good morning. I have a question to anybody who has installed tubular control arms. 1971 442. Beefed up suspension. Everything went together perfect. Accept new shocks are an inch to short. Any ideas would greatly be appriciated.

 

Front or back? Did you torque the arms with weight on the wheels?

 

Some aftermarket LCA (front) have lowered spring buckets, which results in lowering the car. I'm in the process of installing SPC LCA's on my Cutlass, with RideTech shocks. If the shocks are too "short" to reach, I'll just jack the suspension up a bit and mount the shock.

Or you have the wrong shocks. How do they compare with the shocks you removed?

 

Let me know how that works, I just ordered SPC lowers to replace my eBay tubulars. I have Ridetech coilovers. I did buy the coilover shock plates that will raise them a half inch if needed.

 

So far I had to do some grinding on the spacer plate in order for the RideTech shocks to sit flush with the plate. The aluminum t-bar is a bit beefier than a stock stamped t-bar. I assume the coilover t-bar is the same or thicker than what I have.

I didn't take any "after grinding" pics, but here you can see where the interference was.

https://goo.gl/photos/gRduri2VyaXVYoVF6

 

Yeah, the tbar is the same on the coilover. Not too much grinding from what you've shown, but good to know. There are like 3 different plate pics for the same SPC part number, so I guess I'll see when they arrive.

 

Just wanted to touch base here. I wonder if they have 2 versions of the coilover plate? I didn't have to grind mine at all.

 

Wow, you have a ton of room in there. I'll snap a picture of mine tomorrow.

I actually had to remove the spacer from the passenger side and install it (two total) on the driver side to correct the "A-body lean."

 

I'm about to order a second pair of plates to raise my car some this way I can have more use of the coilover.

 

I used Hotchkis A arms and QA1 coil overs and everything bolted in with no issues