rojizostang

kind of long, sorry, but relevant to those with djm lowering control arms...

i'm happy with the djm/calmax 3" lowering control arms except for this...

the construction of the control arms and bushings make it difficult to tighten the control arms bolts tight enough to keep the arms in place without squishing the urethane bushings. I've had the arms on my truck probably a year or so, and upon routine inspection it appears the bushings just really aren't holding up very well..they're kind of starting to ooze, so to speak. One of them is even split, but only between the arms and the frame and not where the sleeves contact the bushing, as far as I can tell

I called djm and spoke to them about it, and they told me the amount of torque needed to tighten the bolts sufficiently will indeed cause this to happen. they suggested a camber kit to keep the arms in place without over tightening, but the preferred method of the tech I spoke to actually recommended tack welding the nuts in place to keep the arms in place without the specified torqued needed to keep everything where it should be.


there was a thread here recently about the poster asking to identify the djm arms he bought, and if you notice the bushings in those pictures, they are also starting to mushroom.

I have no tire wear issues, squeaks or anything else that would indicate there's a bushing problem. my plan is to take the truck as is to a local shop, tack the nuts in place, purchase a new set of busing and replace them at the same time I replace the stock struts and put it all back together. this of course isn't ideal from an alignment stand point, but I think the camber change will be negligible and I will use the trusty tape measure to make sure the to isn't too out of whack.

thoughts or suggestions?

oh, by the way, I forgot about this....the dust covers for the steering rack have also split where they've been contacting the control arms during suspension travel. now the deal is my truck is lowered more than 3" that the arms provide, but if you have these arms, you may want to look at the dust covers for the steering rack. I took a air grinder and smoothed the areas where the boots were damaged by the sharp edges and then retaped the boots with self adhesive silicone tape, but it didn't work as the tape also was punched through.

they are just dust covers and i'm not really worried unless I drive into deep water. the holes are probably .5 by 1 inch and I don't think it will cause any issues. the holes are on the bottoms of the boots

Thoas Lindemann

I dont like those urethane bushings ive never seen them last very long on any application. On mine I think what im going to do is make my own delrin bushing and sleeves that are thick. I think those thin sleeves that they come with are the problem, they dont have enough surface area on the ends, so they have to be extra tight, if i make some that are thicker I think it will work better. Im also doing the same im going to use DJM lowers and Belltech struts to get around 4" drop in front

rojizostang

well if you make a set of bushings I would be interested in buying a set. fwiw I didn't have much luck with the belltech struts. I had two of them that started leaking oil. it seems they don't handle rough pavement well. I sold my mcgauhy drop perches to a guy who gave up on his belltech struts also because his also started leaking oil.

UNBROKEN

iTrader: (1)

Someone needs to build some 3” drop LCA’s with 1” heims.

Thoas Lindemann

Well Im considering buying the Fox 2.0 coilovers, but they are for a 4WD, and I dont want to spend that much money if i cant get 1" of drop from them. I wished there was some other alternative

rojizostang

...

F150-R

I bet DELRIN bushings would last

rojizostang

update:

I was going to have a set of delrin bushings made for it. The shop that actually was going to build them for me recommended that I not use them. Also, I was going to use the supplied urethane bushings as a pattern for the new delrin bushings. The issue with that is the urethane bushing will compress a small amount (which they must do to fit tightly in the control arm bushing housings). My understanding is that the delrin bushings don't compress the way the urethane bushings do. In other words, if I had used the urethane bushings to build the delrin copies from, I don't think the delrin bushings would have compressed enough to actually slip into the housing.

I could obviously have just given them the control arms and had the bushings custom fit to the housings, but in the long run I decided it wasn't worth the cost of having the custom delrin bushings built for it. I'll just swap out the urethane bushings every couple of years if needed. Now that the truck is no longer my daily, it's not really an issue any more.

F150-R

From what I understand Delrin is self lubricating and a tight fit would be good on one hand , but would also transfer harshness to other components like BJ, and tie rod ends.
What is the final word on the 3 inch arem from DJM ruining the inner socket boot on the rack?
I was thinking offset Rack bushings might be a solution but may cause a bump steer problem. You could use Delrin for this with a steel sleeve.
I think some of the Fox chassis Fords did this to clear the oil pan on a big block swap.
What are your thoughts Rojizstang?

2dwoods

I've got some maxtrac 1" drop coils for sale, I didn't use them I went spindles and then struts for the other inch and half