Heating and bending stock radius arms

[OX1]

I have 7 degree bushings with 3.5 lift.
Want more castor and have no need for different or extended arms.

Anyone heated and bent stock radius arms.
and where on the radius arm did you bend it?

 

[av bronco]

I have seen it done, theres a eb owner somewhere in sun valley CA that swears that is the olny way to correct castor, but you will have to deal with the driveline angle too.

 

[Broncobowsher]

Old school alignment.
Block under the frame at the rear attaching point
big chain wrapped over the arm at the adjustment point
big jack under the C-caps at the front of the arm and start jacking.

The thing (as mentioned above) is that the driveshaft angle with 7° of bushing is getting ugly adding more caster via bending arm, longer arms or any other housing rotating method will be worse for the U-joint at the front axle. At this point you need to start researching rotating the outer axle ends and getting less degree bushings in the front to fix the driveline angles

 

[Ohio Bill]

I would talk to a local "old" established frame,spring shop about this before attempting. As mentioned above I have seen this done, but there is drive line reasons to be careful.

 

[Socal Tom]

If your willing to go to that extent, look into cutting and turning the knuckles. Its a much better approach and is pretty well documented.
Tom

 

[OX1]

The only reason I even put in a front driveshaft (finally) was to get on my deckover to get to the Roundup ;D.

If I had to do it over, I would have gone with maybe a 2" lift or so. My original intent was street and some local mild mudding. Ditched the mudding part after I made the eng compart all "pretty". Don't want to lower it since I already have major bucks/mods in susp and steering geometry (and of course I just thought of how this is going to eff with my riser %). although it will only push it back 3/8" if I go with 5 degrees). I have extra arms, so I figure this is easily reversable, if/ever.

 

[TN1776]

I vote for cutting and turning the inner c's. Bending stock radius arms scares me. Why not go with (dare I say it) dropped radius arm mounts? I've seen some custom-built ones that were very beefy and looked to be able to take some hard blows. It does not sound like you're going to be doing much wheeling though so maybe dropped radius arm mounts are your answer.

 

[Hal9000]

Agree, cut and turn would be best, drop brackets would be easiest.

That being said, I just bent my radius arms (for more tire clearance in my case), and it went much easier than I expected. I made one bend just in front of the shock mount, and one bend about 18" back. For what you're doing, I'd think that bending them as far forward as possible would be desirable, but maybe not possible.

The arms are much weaker than I expected them to be. They're only designed to be strong in one direction (forward to rear), so if you bend them more than a few degrees, you risk creating a stress riser where forces will concentrate. Probably not a problem for most street driving, but if you go wheeling, it could create a failure point. In my case, I gussetted and boxed the bends to add some strength back in. Still, I haven't decided how much confidence I have in them yet and I may swap to something stronger down the road.

 

[FASTERDAMITT]

Play with tire air pressure until you get around to getting more caster, might help.

 

[OX1]

Old school alignment.
Block under the frame at the rear attaching point
big chain wrapped over the arm at the adjustment point
big jack under the C-caps at the front of the arm and start jacking.

The thing (as mentioned above) is that the driveshaft angle with 7° of bushing is getting ugly adding more caster via bending arm, longer arms or any other housing rotating method will be worse for the U-joint at the front axle. At this point you need to start researching rotating the outer axle ends and getting less degree bushings in the front to fix the driveline angles

I assume that procedure also entails heating the arms?

If I ever start cutting into a 44, it will be the high pinion I have with the cast ends. Seems like equal or less work to shorten one of them, then cutting and rotating "C's"

 

[OX1]

I vote for cutting and turning the inner c's. Bending stock radius arms scares me. Why not go with (dare I say it) dropped radius arm mounts? I've seen some custom-built ones that were very beefy and looked to be able to take some hard blows. It does not sound like you're going to be doing much wheeling though so maybe dropped radius arm mounts are your answer.

I just cut 2 monstrous dropped radius arm brackets off my 74 crawler I'm building. Anything I've seen done on them did not seem very reversable, so I really don't want to go that route. I'd cut up one of my 44's before I did the dropped radius arm brackets, probably not that much more work overall.

Thanks all for the info and suggestions.

 

[Action]

Wild Horse!

Call Wild Horse as there are quite a few sitting in there lot with heated and bent arms (Stock Arms). I am sure they can tell you more about it.
Jack

 

[Hal9000]

Interesting that newer Ford trucks have cast "Do not heat, bend, or weld" onto their suspension components. I guess that they don't want the liability if something goes wrong.

 

[OX1]

Interesting that newer Ford trucks have cast "Do not heat, bend, or weld" onto their suspension components. I guess that they don't want the liability if something goes wrong.

Don't the new arms have caster shims built into them. They don't use bushings, IIRC....