Thread: 53 Is back from the Body Shop

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There is another possible solution. Turn the cross shaft so that it is vertical. Fabricate an angle bracket or solid block that positions the ball joint further to the rear. Once you get the alignment in the ball park, you could even weld the bracket to the spring tower. After that you could use alignment shims to fine tune the caster and camber.

Mike- that's not a terrible idea!

I was thinking that the cross shaft could be milled to add to the slot so it could move further.
And I want to add that use of 304 stainless should never be used in suspension components period. I realize you may have just used that pic as an example, but I think someone should say it so somewhere in the future someone thinks it was done.

Yes, the pic was for reference only. I have learned that stainless and grade 8 are a bad choice where there's any flex involved. After looking at it, I don't know if the plate or the milling of the shaft will work, The bushing side of the a arm will contact the mount before it can even move. I think I would be happyest either buying the adjustable a arms or cutting them off and moving them to the correct spot, which is what I'm leaning towards.

I got it to drive better last night, I was able to squeeze 2.5 caster out of it and -.75 camber. It's no longer follows the cut grooves in the road, and the seam on the highway where they widened it doesn't throw me around anymore. I can feel it a little but it's not awful. Another issue it had is I will call it shopping cart wheel at about 73 mph. I always attributed that to a tire balance thing that I could not get fixed, but I think the front wheels were just dancing back and forth cause because I My front wheels were angled the wrong way. If I notch the frame by the rear a arm adjusting bolt, I should be able to slide it a little bit further and get more castor out of it. I'm going to call it a win for right now though, or at least a cease fire.

I think a cease fire is a WIN! LOL

Lady in waiting. We just booked a trip for Panama City Beach in Florida at the end of May and we want to take Rita. The last couple years it proved itself reliable to make the trip ( I hope ). It will probably be about a 4k or a little less mile trip altogether and we're pretty excited! In the pic it looks like I didn't clean the bugs off from last summer

Emerald Coast Cruizin? We have been to the fall show a couple of times, but have never been able to get to the spring show. Enjoy, stay safe and have fun. Drive the old girl as much as possible between now and then.

Woops, just checked the ECC Facebook page. That's in March. Enjoy anyhow.

Don't forget I live in Northwest Iowa, I won't be able to get much drive time on it before we leave. I shouldn't have to do much to it before we go, I'd like to mess with the alignment a bit more, I think I can get that better now, and try to figure out a way to get luggage in the back.

Rita got a trunk today! We got sick of trying to figure out what to do with luggage and whatnot whenever we took it out so we had a aluminum box made and I painted at the same color as the rims. I was a little worried it would stick out like a sore thumb but it actually blends in pretty decent for what it is. We made the dimensions just big enough so we could fit our big cooler in sideways and put all of our luggage in the other side.

Nice! Looks like Rita's wanting to travel! You going to need another step plate on the running board so Kari can reach the bottom of the box?

It's getting to be crunch time for our trip to Florida. The whole pickup sits kind of low so I don't think it'll be a problem, I hope not anyway.

Looks great and low profile so no eye sore or wind resistance slowing her down!

Originally Posted by stovens

Looks great and low profile so no eye sore or wind resistance slowing her down!

Thanks, I would have liked it even with the bed top but then the cooler wouldn't fit. It wasn't such a cheap cooler so we kinda wanted to keep using it. Dang short bed sides lol

Not really a build log but we'll call it a reliability test, we just got back from a Florida trip to Panama City taking Rita. We left Friday the 20th and made a stop in Gardner Ks to stop by Roger and pay him a visit. He was also kind enough to pick up an Ls1 intake I bought in his area off FB swap earlier. He made sure we were full of food and he let us take his roadster for a drive too, that was fun! It pretty much rained most of the way down there and on and off after that. We learned that the back window leaks like a garden hose so we had our chamois rolled up laying on the top of the seat soaking up the water. This was after we were wondering why the carpet was wet. One of my favorite parts of the trip was when I was at Rogers I mentioned that the driveshaft vibrates at about 74 and I could never figure out why. He suggested that I check my angles and once he explained how it worked and I knew that was my problem. During one of the rainy times I backed Rita up on a curb to adjust my pinion angle and shorty after this group of kids showed up to see if I needed help. They were a bunch of car guys and I had a blast talking to them. They helped me out with anything I needed and were loving it, it was probably one of my favorite parts of the vacation. I got some random pics and videos for you. Rain, ocean salt running off Rita, the condo and the boys.
We put on 2870 miles and got 20 mpg every tank so I was happy with that. We just about have 19k on it now and the list of things to do keeps getting smaller but new things keep getting added lol


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