Ok, so I am still chasing my front end problem again. I removed the tie rod ends from both front wheels. I unbolted the strut shaft at the strut tower bearing. I have tried lifting the front and letting the wheels hang unsupported. I have also lifted each side with the jack under the control arm. Either way, both the wheels turn really stiff by hand. I am trying to decide if I need to replace the ball joints. I am going to be taking it to an old school shop to have it aligned but an alignment won't do much good if it is too stiff to return to center. The guy at the shop told me if I lift the front end with the tie rod ends off and lift with the control arms hanging, the wheels should turn almost by themselves to toe in... No luck with that on my car... The ball joints (Moog) don't have a lot of mileage on them (maybe 70 to 80k).. I have never run across ball joints binding only getting loose and sloppy,, The struts (KYB) and strut towers have only about 30K on them.. What's the thought? Replace the ball joints? Replace the struts? Replace the strut towers?

 

Ok, so disregard this thread. I threw in the towel. I ordered the Spohn set of control arm assemblies (ready to bolt on) after seeing that my previously powder coated A arms are completely rusted and I suspect changing the ball joints would be a real PITA...

 

Unfortunately, they are backed up 2 to 3 weeks on shipping so it will be another month before I can come back here and report how the car handles after the new ball joints...

 

I dont know if they (spohn) ever fixed them, but some buyers had an issue with the a-arms setting the wheel too far back. I like my UMI arms much better.

 

Thanks, I will contact them about it... Also, when I have it aligned it will be done by an old school alignment guy so he should be able to make sure...

 

Hopefully spohn fix it, unfortunately i dont think an alignment will.

 

I haven't received them yet since Spohn is about 2 to 3 weeks behind on shipping right now. I did email them about it and sent two pictures that someone else had posted here showing the problem with the offset ball joint and the problem with trying to align camber and caster. Here is their response:

Good morning! We have not had those issues in years. But thanks for bringing this up because i assure you the a-arms we have out now do not have this issue any longer. It was weird because we have sold so many of those and actually very few times we ended up having customers come to us with this issue which we resolved immediately and sent out new A-arms. We studied this when the few times this issue arose and R&D has since fixed any issue making sure this never happens again. Our 1982-92 f-body lower control arms are designed around OEM geometry specifications with tubular structure and added gusseting for rigidity. Note one thing is the spring pockets in ours are a little more heavy duty than OEM so you might need to compress your coil springs a little more to get them to set in. Any other questions please give us a call we also send out a set of instructions for you or the shop to reference.

So when I get them, I will check them against the stock a arms before I put them on and return them if the problem still exists.... I will come back here in about 3 or 4 weeks with a follow up on how it went.. They told me the new a arms will ship on 2/16 so since I went with free ground shipment, I won't probably see them until the first of March or so....

 

Well, at least they fixed it. I saw the thread posted here, but never read anything of it being resolved, but i might have missed it though. Good to know.

 

Huh... Something's fishy here.

Spohn specifically made their A-arm geometry different because it matches their tubular K-member, people have found that if you use both together all of a sudden everything lines up again. I haven't heard anything about them "fixing" their geometry but if they did then that would add an extra variable to using Sphon front suspension parts in needing to match control arm and K-member designs. If that's the case then... well I wasn't a big fan of their products anyway.

 

So, after a very long wait (10 day delay at Spohn, 5 days FedEX east coast to west coast, and 7 days for FedEX to get them from their distribution center 2 hours away to my house), I hung the arms. They fit right in on getting them hung. Picked up an internal coil spring compressor. The spring pockets in the Spohn A Arms are deeper and their instructions say you have to compress the springs farther than normal. Tried to compress them enough and swing the A Arm up but then the spring compressor hooks hang up on the deeper Spohn spring pockets. At first I thought the Spohn arms sat higher but after putting them on the bench next to the factory arms it looks like the landing points for the bushings, ball joint and spring seat all land at about the same spot as factory... No way they were going to go in though..

I guess the next thing to try is to "mount" the spring to the A Arm by seating it and putting the bottom end of a spring compressor on the outside bottom of the A Arm and the hooks near the top. Compress the spring onto the A Arm. Then, lift the arm up so the spring goes straight up until I can get the bolts into the bushings.

I was too irritated with it last night to get some pictures but I will get the spring compressor that uses the big flat fork on the bottom and see if I can essentially clamp the spring into the A Arm by putting the flat (slightly curved) fork on the bottom of the A Arm...

 

You could take the springs to a truck spring shop and have them metal strap them compressed. Mount your springs and when you're ready, cut the straps with tin snips. For $10-$20 you can save yourself a lot of time and headache.

 

Thanks, good idea but I don't know if there is a shop anywhere near me that can do that.... I will check it out...

 

Well, I tried using the spring compressor to clamp the spring down to the a arm and then lift it into place. Just no friggin' way to get the arms aligned and get the bolts in the bushings... Gave up and put the bolts in with the a arms hanging down.. But still couldn't swing them into place cause the top of the spring hits the K member... The only way I can see that might work is to do what was suggested here and have the springs compressed and strapped... I will search to see if I can find somebody to do it but basically they have to be compressed completely from what I can tell...

Spohn says they have a custom spring compressor.. After looking at their picture, it clamps the spring to the a arm just as I tried so I don't think theirs would work any better.. They want $100 for it and 7 days to ship plus transit time... A lot to risk whether it works or not...

 

So, I looked at modifying my internal compressor and the bolt is not long enough to turn it around and pull down from the top. I got some 5/8 all thread and used one set of the hooks that is a slip fit (the other one is threaded and not used) to make a compressor that pulls down at the top through the A Arm. The base plate under the bottom of the A Arm is the steel plate from one of my pulley pullers. Based upon what I found on the internet, the all thread is good to 60,000psi and holds up to 1,800lbs. I read somewhere that the fully compressed spring has a force of 750lbs so it appears the all thread rod is strong enough.. I just mounted it up but haven't run it down to compress the springs all the way... Basically the nut at the top is welded to the all thread, the one at the bottom gets welded to the all thread also (isn't in the picture yet).. You would use the nut on the bottom to un-screw the all thread while holding the nut at the base plate so it won't turn pulling down the top set of hooks.. Looking for comments on using this.. Thanks... Here are the pics.

 

Does that compressor on have hooks on one end? I have an old Cal-Van spring compressor with hooks on both ends (1 threaded, 1 not), but i usually put the hooks till they wedge between the coils and install it upside down so the threaded side stick out the bottom of the a-arm. This allows me to really compress the spring till both hooks are about 1/2" apart w/out having it "locked" on to the a-arm. I bought it back in 93 or so. Ive used it countless times on stock/aftermarket a-arms/springs and it always works great.

I guess what im saying is. There are a lot of other type of spring compressors, but that old cal-van has always worked the best. I dont know if cal-van is still around, but a company called power built makes a exact copy of that tool. A little late in replying now that you bought that one, but maybe for future use. That old cal-van has paid for itself many times over. <rant>

 

That's weird, I replied but the reply disappeared. Anyway, I have the same one as you and took it apart to use with the all thread since the threaded rod that came with the compressor is too short and you have to weld a nut on the end of it to make it work that way... The threads are not standard on the compressor rod either... I will try my version with the all thread tonight just a bit nervous about it being strong enough to hold until the spring is in place and then being able to get the hooks loose at the top once the spring is released into the pocket...

 

Well, I gave it one more shot tonight... At first the hooks slipped and the spring bowed out sideways but stayed captured.. Tried again and got it clamped down as tight as I could on the bench but still not short enough.. So, I hung the A Arm and swung it up until the spring hit the upper pocket (kind of halfway under the edge of the pocket). I jacked up the outside end of the A Arm a little bit, then tightened the compressor and kept repeating that until I got it compressed as far as I could.. I used the jack and the edge of the pocket to help compress the spring so there wasn't too much pressure on the nut on the all thread as I tightened it. It was still just a little too tall but I was able to jack it up until it popped into the K member pocket.. Problem is, the spring cushion that goes on top of the spring popped loose and is now sitting in there sideways, half on the spring and half off the spring... Don't know what to do with that other than to try and take it back down again and try to put the spring cushion back in..

 

Like most things, the first one takes 2 days and then the other side takes 2 minutes.

 

Well, I managed to get the one back out even though the hooks slipped sideways due to the high degree of compression. What Spohn doesn't tell you is that you have to glue the spring cushions in first as even with full spring compression there isn't enough clearance to tape them onto the top of the spring. They also don't tell you that the standard spring compressors won't work for two reasons. One, due to having to fully compress the spring, the screw on the standard compressor will stick out the top preventing you from swinging the arm into place and it will hit the top of the upper spring pocket. Two, you can't use the lower set of hooks on the standard compressor since you can't get them low enough (with their tall spring pocket in the A Arm) on the spring to compress it enough. Unlike the standard compressor which compresses the spring from two directions and therefore can be tilted to angle it into the upper pocket, you have to compress the spring into the A Arm by bolting from the bottom and that means you can't angle the spring.

When I did this several years ago to put in new bushings and ball joints with the stock arms everything went together just fine.. This A Arm design makes it almost impossible to install. Spohn will tell you that all you have to do is compress the spring all the way and they slide right into position. Yeah right, easier said than done since there is not a spring compressor designed to do that safely... By the way, due to the depth of the spring pocket in the A Arm, banding won't work as you won't be able to get the band back out of the pocket once you cut it (and of course slam the spring into the upper pocket when you cut the band). After repeatedly compressing the spring as far as I could (due to slipping arms etc and and resetting the compressor) it now appears after taking the one spring back out that it is shorter by about a 1/2 inch than it was... So, now I have to buy new springs...

These may work just fine on the Spohn K member and they may perform just fine on a stock K member (if you can successfully get it installed), however, I do not recommend these to anybody. I don't know if Spohn will take them back since one is a bit scrapped up with prying it into position so I may just scrap them and lose my $500 I paid for them. I am concerned that I could damage the new springs by having to fully compress them so it looks like the best solution is to go back to stock arms...

 

I have used zip ties to hold the rubber in place but not sure if that is a option with the compressor also heater hose pushed threw the top coil is a popular choice. Im no help with the compressor never used one and I have been working on these cars for 20+ years now with more spring chages then I care to remember lol. I remember when I went to umi a-arms spring swaps got a lot more difficult cause I couldn't keep the bottom spring in the pocket do to the large hole cut out in the center. So now instead of a simple 1 man job it turned into a 3 person job 1 to run the jack and 2 with large pry bars to keep spring seated in pocket while it gets jacked up in to place.

 

After compressing that one spring multiple times, it ended up being about 1/2 inch shorter than the other one.. That was probably due to it bending sideways I guess.. Anyway, these springs have been in there since 2012 and are rusted from having the car on Colorado salted snow roads for 4 years so I ordered a new set.. Depending upon FedEX screwing up or not in the Portland distribution center this time, I should have them by this weekend but it could be another week.. So, waiting again to try and install these...

 

Here we go again with FedEX delays.. First it said this Friday the 5th, then early this morning it said Sunday the 7th, and just now it changed to Monday the 8th... FedEX shipping these days is really poor..

 

Well, after much effort (measured in hours on each side), both A Arms and new coils are in. It was dangerous trying to compress the springs that far and the spring compressor wanted to slip sideways due to the amount of force.. If I ever have to change the bushings, I will have to cut the springs to get the arms back apart again. Spohn provided new sway bar links that pivot but they are all the way to one side of the bracket with the stock sway bar which I think might defeat the purpose of the swivel. The return to center is much better with the new ball joints but it is still a little squirrelly driving down the road.... I have an appointment next Monday for an old school alignment so will see how it drives after that..

 

Follow up. Got the alignment done and things are nearly back to normal (significantly better). The alignment guy test drove it before and after and dialed it in as close as he could. It is still just a little flighty but we decided to wait until I get some miles on the car to loosen up the ball joints a little bit and see how it is doing in a few months. If need be he can make a few adjustments to maybe in improve it more if needed. So, the whole issue of fighting with the darting and failure to return to center all these years was binding in the ball joints which only had low mileage on them.

 

Interesting. I've never personally seen that before. Glad you go it fixed, and thanks for reporting back.