Im looking to draw up a design for my own A-Arms and was needing to know what the length is from the center of the bolt that attaches the lower A-Arm to the frame to to the center of the bolt that attaches the lower portion of the shock to the A-Arm. If you have an after market A-Arm on your DS could you post that dimension in this thread and list the length of your A-Arm weather its a +1" or +2". Hell you might as well throw in the brand too while your at it. The stocker is 10" from center to center give or take an 1/8". You cant look at my pictures to see what Im talking about.

I understand the cause and effect of the placement of the shock mount on the A-Arm and I also understand that also will effect how the shocks are set up for the Valving , Spring rate . Etc. I was thinking of providing three different mounting holes on the new Arm too.

Does anyone have a recomendation for the ball joint as far as brand?

What about material , would there be a specific grade or thickness of Cro-Moly to use or would a mild steel do the trick . I would imagine that the Mild Steel would be easier to work with? I see most after market units have the cro-moly but Ive never noticed.

Does anyone have first hand experience riding the Plus1" forward A-Arms and could they post any comments as to how they ride?


Thanks guys !!

Prozack

 

the distance is the same as stock. the arms are longer from the shock mount to the ball joint
if you go + 3 or larger you have to get longer shocks
with + 2 or smaller you do have to change the spring settings or the spring it self
to compensate for the extra stress on the shock
cro-moly would be better to work with, mild steel might bend under stress
I love my a-arms got them from lonestar racing
as for ball joints they came with the arms not sure who makes the best

 

I have made some a-arms before. not alot. just a few. the mild steel arms that I made. showed some stress cracks in the arms after just one day of riding. they would have to be very thick tubeing to hold up. then they would be heavy. chromo is a good choice if you have a tig welder. you can probably use .065 wall and get by. there is another tube that I would highly recomend. D.O.M. its way stronger than mild. not as strong as chromo. but, you can mig weld it. and do not have to heat treat it for stress later. like you do with chromo. I have used .095 wall in D.O.M. (drawn over mandrel) I would not use any thinner than that. you may even consider .120 wall for a-arms. the one problem that I had making a-arms was, after you weld the arm that is clamped in the jig and pull the clamps off. they tend to spring in slightly from heat. I could not seem to keep them cool enough. not enough patient I geuss. good luck

the a-arms on the buggy in my pics are 4 that I made. they are D.O.M. and no problems.

 

Thanks for the info guys !

Bus-Mech. So if I want to do it right then I need to heat treat the moly after I get it welded up ? Are we talking about heating it up with a torch and letting it cool or does it need to be something different? Who/ where would I take it to to have that done ?

 

I have allways avoided chromo work because I only have a mig welder. the last time I mig welded was in welding class 9 years ago. so, I do not have alot experiance with the process. I do know that it is fairly easy to work with. it is not lighter than mild steel. it is just stronger. allowing the use of thinner material. after welding chromoly it is stressed near the welds. and has to be heat treated. there are a couple of different methods that I know of maybe more. one is called metalax sonic stress releif. this is cheaper. but, only unstress's the weld area. the other is oven heat treat. more common. the torch is probably not a good idea. I do not know what temps to heat treat. or if cooling slowly is a factor. if you could find out these things. maybe you could do it yourself in the oven. just tell the wife you are baking a cake for her birthday. I would think that welding shops and/or fab shops would be the place to check to have it done. I have never done it. one other thing. I was wondering if a person could have them heat treated while still clamped in a jig. maybe they would hold shape better.

how are you planing on making your a-arm jigs. just curius.

 

Well there are a bunch off buggy shops here in the Phoenix area so perhaps a call to them may turn up a few leads on the heat treating. For all the fab work they do Im sure they would know something.
As far as the fab up , I was going to take off one of the arms and form up a jig on a steel plate. I would weld the mounting points to the plate so theres no chance of them moving. Making the jig would probably be the easiest thing to do.

I was thinking of using PVC piping to do the mock-up. Its easy to bend with heat to get the right bends and such. Glueing the parts together would be a snap too. That way I can mount them up to make sure they dont bind or hit anything.

 

some good Idea's. good luck with it. keep us posted on your progress.