Bolt On A-Arm Suspension, v.3

[ricola]

Originally Posted by Cohibra45

There is nothing wrong with the ball joints. Remember, that is what the B/J and L/P spindles have been using forever. If the angles of the seat cups are the same as are on the torsion arms shouldn't be a problem.

I should have been more explicit, I meant to say steering tie rod ball joints, they were never designed to take suspension loads, just steering loads.

[volkdent]

Originally Posted by ricola

I should have been more explicit, I meant to say steering tie rod ball joints, they were never designed to take suspension loads, just steering loads.

I agree. I used steering ball joints in the top position on my setup, but they are in the much less loaded position and also are from a '70 Ford Galaxy, quite a beefy car, so I'm not too worried about them in that location. I'm not sure Bruce's design has anywhere near the stiffness of my design, but it's a whole lot simpler and easy to fabricate, which should keep the cost down. I think that if the steering balljoints are an issue with his design it wouldn't be too hard to retrofit something a little better down the road.

Looks like there will be at least a couple of decent A-arm suspensions available for bugs in the new year!!! I'm not sure if I'll ever add mine to the list, but at least its good to know they are available.

Jason