197 replies to this topic

[arrimar]

wonderful reading,it will be great when everything is stripped down to a single post with the alignment settings,parts list. seems there are more than a handfull of us all with front end bits strewn from one end of the garage to the other. its thanks to this thread and another similar that i found someone had put two passenger side uc uca's on my front end. ???? anyway a problem discovered early is a little problem. the bigger problem is getting hold of a drivers side uca in a hurry.

[Dangerous]

Finally got around to hosting and/or taking a few more photos, so here goes.

Upper mounting points - LH, UC and A9X. LX to follow, hopefully both RTS and non RTS.

Unmolested original LH. The upper wishbone mount appears to be just about level with the top shocker rubber mount surface.


Unmolested LH again, this time from the engine bay side. Note that there's plenty of room for the mount to move upwards, which is what GMH did with the UC


Unmolested original UC - not much room to go any higher


UC again - from engine side. Definitely no room to go any higher, so GMH obviously wanted to get the mount as high as they could.


Original A9X - could be wrong, but I reckon the top hole is higher than the LH one, but is it as high as the UC one? Could be. Difficult to compare with the LH and UC photo, but it's bloody hard getting a camera in there with the wheels on. Lower hole is much lower than any of the others.


Another shot of the A9X setup.


A9X front crossmember jigsaw puzzle - now, what bit goes where?


Steering arms

red one on right is standard LX, middle black one is UC, left one - black with white paint splotch is A9X. Note how much lower the A9X one sits.


Side on view of same - this time with A9X one on bottom. Note that the LX one is shorter than the other two.


Comparison of UC and A9X one mounted on the A9X stub axle. Pretty close - definitely better than using an LX one.


Stub axles

Comparo of the LX and A9X stub axles - front. A9X is the black one. Note how much higher the caliper mounting hole is on the A9X one, which shows how much higher the axle is located on the stub.


Comparo of the LX and A9X stub axles - rear. The holes located near the bottom are the centre points of the axle axes. Not also clear in these pics, but obvious when you pick them up and compare them is how much heavier and thicker the A9X (and HQ) stub axles are, when compared to the LH/LX ones. I'm pretty sure that the A9X ones are just about identical to the HQ ones, except they've been heat treated for extra durability. HX one tonnner stub axle part numbers are identical to A9X part numbers. HQ part numbers are different.


Oh well, off to a Club meeting, then might try to find some time to take shots of an RTS front end. Used to have one somehwere........

Cheers,

Dangerous.

[Dangerous]

PS Darky - mine was a race car too, as was/is Besty's.

[REDA9X]

Shoot me now, just did some double checking, bottom holes for A9X.

[Toranamat69]

AAAAaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhh!!!

[arrimar]

thank you for the visuals dangerous.
do harrops steering arms eliminate the need to grind the caliper mount ar just reduce the amount of grinding?

[Dangerous]

RED, OK, bottom holes it is.

I'm pretty sure 'Besty's A9X has never been apart, and they are definitely in the bottom holes. I'd say both mine and Darky's have been stripped to bits once or twice, but I can't see any bolt marks on the top bolt holes on mine.

Toranamat - oops, did I do something wrong - need a cup of tea and a bex powder? I actually posted all of these shots so you could do all the hard work ad tell us the best setup I'll try to get some measurements of at least the UC and A9X hole locations. Where do you reckon the best reference point would be - top of the crossmember mount, or shocker upper rubber mounting cup face?

Arrimar and Rory - I haven't seen the Harrop arms in the flesh, but I'm worried that they don't seem to have the bump stop ends on the insides of the tie rod end holes that the oem ones do. This is the bit that is designed to contact the front of the lower wishbone, and safely limit the steering travel. This might mean that if you use teh Harrop arms, the steering can go further than it was designed to, and something might hit something that it's not supposed to - not a good scenario with a front suspension in action. If I was using them, I'd be checking steering limit clearances with wishbones, calipers, rack etc across the full range os suspension movement, and making sure that the steering travel is safely limited before things start to hit each other.

Charlie - yep, definitely. That would be a good outcome - you should have seen the length of the thread on LX, A9X UC RTS/non RTS on the previous forum . It would be nice to wrap it all up into one locked sticky, with clear photos showing what it's all about, and no mistakes. I still reckon it will be pretty much a UC front end with lowered upper arms, and a stencil for removing a little metal from the upper arms for clearance if HX calipers are used, plus some clearancing of the caliper bracket for the tie rod end. That will be very close to an A9X front end and brakes. Another option would be to use the hybrid Torana/HX cast iron bracket bolted to alloy caliper brake setup, as it sounds like it might fit better without mods. I haven't actually tried it myself, but it certainly looks feasible.

[Toranavista]

Thanks Dangerous. Some RTS front end shots would complete the set

[Toranamat69]

Dangerous, your pics are great, I was just being silly because REDA9X gave us a bumsteer, and then did a backflip. )

If you don't have an RTS front end there, I can get a snapshot of the one in my LX - I can probably just get the camera in there.

I would go with the top of the crossmember mount as the reference point.

M@

[Dangerous]

More pics. This is one of an LX, but I can't confirm whether it's and RTS version or not. It's in a pre - RTS car, but I don't know if it's been replaced at some stage.



Here's probably the easiest way to measure upper wishbone height in a vehicle. Using a tape measure, measure from the lower surface of the chassis rail to the centre of the top wishbone pivot/shaft.


In the untouched UC, this measurement was around 40mm. In the LX in the first pic, it was around 55mm. In the untouched LH, it was a tad under 55mm, but sagging of the rubber mounts may account for a few mm here and there. All we need now are the A9X (upper and lower mounting points) and a confirmed RTS LX measurements. Then we will know exactly where we stand. I can't get the A9X or confirmed LX RTS ones for a while - can anyone else get these?

Edited by Dangerous, 11 January 2007 - 12:55 PM.

[Peter UC]

If you're measuring at the end of the bolt I measured 75mm on a RTS LX. If you measured further up the rail (as the rail curves at that point) closer to the arm than I measured 80mm. Hope this helps.

[slr5640]

The A9X front crossmembers also had a dirty big square section bump stop welded to them- you might be able to see it in my 'jigsaw' photo.

I have pinched this quote from the HQ stub axle thread and was hoping Dangerous could add a few more closer pics of the bump stop. I may have to get some dimensions as well. Hope you can help.

[Dangerous]

SLR5640, I can help, but a bit busy at the moment. It seems I have the flu or some other bug, and my home PC hard drive just committed Hari Kiri last night.

I do have drawings of the bump stop with measurements somewhere.

Edited by Dangerous, 12 January 2007 - 09:41 AM.

[Dangerous]

If you're measuring at the end of the bolt I measured 75mm on a RTS LX. If you measured further up the rail (as the rail curves at that point) closer to the arm than I measured 80mm. Hope this helps.

If you hold the tape measure vertically and touching the end of the bolt, then measure from where the tape measure touches the bottom of the chassis rail to the centre of the bolt, that's exaclty the way I meaured it. If that's the way you measured it, you're saying that the RTS measurement is 75mm?

[Peter UC]

Yep double checked it 75mm.

[355LX]

So for someone like myself who is using a UC crossmember with UC upper and lower arms, sterring arms etc, and std torana stub axles with 9degree KPI, would it be advisable to lower the top arm mounting holes down like the A9X?

I also am running 1000lb springs and koni's, so it's similar to Rory's setup.

Great work guys, keep it up!!

Dave

[Toranamat69]

So for someone like myself who is using a UC crossmember with UC upper and lower arms, sterring arms etc, and std torana stub axles with 9degree KPI, would it be advisable to lower the top arm mounting holes down like the A9X?

I definately would be doing it.

M@

[arrimar]

thanks for the pic of harrops

[Dangerous]

So the question is, did the panel beaters fit a A9X crossmember??

Could be possible. Can you post a side on picture of the crossmember with the wheel off? Also, does it have the offest balljoint upper wishbones? The right hand one will have an "R" stamped in the top of it, next to the balljoint.

What is also possible is that an LH crossmemeber was used, and they redrilled the holes in the same place as the RTS LX front end, hence the four holes. It's also posible that it was done at some stage by a previous owner as a suspension improvement - I've seen a few around.