MeanGreen97Z

I have a bent stock upper a arm. I replaced them with tubular chromoly UMI upper a arms. the UMI upper a arm bent the same way.... think anything could be causing it?

bluz28

Post a picture if you can, and we also need a lot more detail!

MeanGreen97Z

Car tweaked the a arm. Wonder what could have caused this. The stock piece that this part in the picture replaced was bent also. So the stock piece bent. I replaced it with this Chromoly piece and it bent too. What can be causing these to bend?

mdacton

maybe a bent shock or bad mount?

one of the lowers is messed up?......not moving up and down like it should, possibly bindin pushing the knuckle forward or rearward...

bluz28

So you only bent the driver side arm, and the passenger side is fine?

MeanGreen97Z

Ya just the driver side arm. I was thinking about eliminating all the hardware issues by going tubular k-member and lower a-arms. UMI is sending me another driver side upper.

MeanGreen97Z

I was thinking a bent lower could be doing this.... The shocks are new. Mount was fine when I removed the assembly. I was really going at it with a ruler and a level. I can't find anything on the frame or the shock tower that is different from the passenger side.

mdacton

maybe remove the shock/spring assembly and move it up and down to see if anything is binding.

MeanGreen97Z

I just replaced the springs.... I didn't see any binds. This is pissing me off. I've got it being aligned right now. Hopefully the guys can tell me if they find something bent.

bluz28

Maybe the Knuckle is bent.

MeanGreen97Z

I'd go for that.... except it bent it even after swapping to new spindles with the LS1 brake upgrade.

Sam Strano

The stock GM upper arms have a curve in them to fit around the shock tower @ full compression. None of the aftermarket arms do. When you really compress the suspension the arms hit the body and can be tweaked.... This is common with all the aftermarket uppers. It gets worse the lower and softer the car is, and god forbid someone didn't put their bumpstops on (or have shocks with new bumpstops already in place).

MeanGreen97Z

Anything I can do to combat this? I have sportlines on the car now....

Sam Strano

Get rid of the Sportlines and go back to the Pro-kits in your sig (or some other not so low spring) and/or run stock arms.

bluz28

Originally Posted by Sam Strano:
The stock GM upper arms have a curve in them to fit around the shock tower @ full compression. None of the aftermarket arms do. When you really compress the suspension the arms hit the body and can be tweaked.... This is common with all the aftermarket uppers. It gets worse the lower and softer the car is, and god forbid someone didn't put their bumpstops on (or have shocks with new bumpstops already in place).

Sam, his stock arm also did the same thing.