misnblu

This is for anybody that wants to get rid of the factory control arms for any of the '95-2004 J-body Cavalier, Sunfire cars.

I'm basically taking several posts from other forums I've been on and putting them together here for anyone with a J-body to be able to do this and make their car just a bit better.
This is all being done in a span of time of about a month.

The factory arms are a two piece, stamped steel that is welded together to make up the control arms.
GM made aluminum units that are only on the '99 Grand Ams and the '99 Aleros, no more.
They are identical to the 3rd gen J-bodies but are 1/2 inch longer at the ball joint.
They fit perfectly but if you don't shorten up the arms, you'll have about 10 degrees of negative camber which most don't want.

I got a set of the aluminum control arms from Barry's U Pull It and took them to Accu-Fab and Construction in Pascagoula to tig weld in the ball joint holes so that I could shorten up the arms accordingly.
Accu-fab did a great job of doing just what was needed and thanks to them for doing what other fab shops didn't want to do.

Both control arms for comparison.


Close up view of the welded ends of the control arms.


This is the factory units that I'm doing too. I've predrilled the rivets for further drilling to remove the ball joints.


This picture shows both control arms lined up hole for hole. You can see the extra length of the aluminum units.


Just a picture of the complete control arm.

That's the progress so far with the control arms.
Remember I'm doing both sets of control arms and replacing the stock bushings of both with the Prothane bushings.

I know the pictures aren't the best but it's all I've got for a digi camera.
More work on it this weekend and will have more picture updates with it too.

You can see that I'm drilling out the rivets that GM likes to use to hold the ball joints onto the arms. Really brilliant GM. :roll:

I'd guess these aluminum arms to be about 2/3 the weight of the factory steel units and you can really tell when you have a steel unit in one hand and the aluminum in the other.

That's why when I'd read about this on the j-body.org, thought I couldn't go wrong with trying this mod, do all of the work with the exception of the welding, and have something that I know not many (maybe 3 or so) people have done to their Cavies.

Knowing suspensions, lighter weight control arms will lessen the unsprung weight of the suspension which should help out the overall handling to some degree too.

Now it's time to take out the control arm bushings from the arms so that we can install the Prothane bushings in their place.

If your doing the control arm bushings remove the old bushings, the big bushing remember you have to remove the metal sleeve on the ouside of the bushing, the poly bushings will not fit untill that sleeve is removed. Once you get the rubber out you can take a hacksaw blade and slit the sleeve in 2 spots and hammer it out with a screwdriver and a hammer. Also there is a top and bottom to the big bushing so pay attention to the dirrections with the kit. The smaller bushing you press out and pop in the new ones, new ones are 2 piece, top and bottom.. Always lube suspension bushings or they fight you going in and squeek like crazzy while in use.


The big bushing doesn't give you the choice but to destroy it as this is your only means to remove it from the control arm. Take a long 3/8 inch extension, a razor knife or large exacto knife like I did and pry the bushing as much as you can, cut around the metal sleeve (on both sides)using the exacto or razor knife until the bushing comes right out of the arm. You should have nothing more left than a minute amount of rubber and the iron sleeve.
Here are the tools you'll need.




Now you need to remove the metal donut and that's not hard.
Take a metal hacksaw to cut a path (slit the sleeve) into the metal ring ( be carefull to not damage the control arm) and cut only one cut through the metal sleeve and no further, and don't make two cuts like I've seen on some projects for this mod. Now take a hammer and a heavy screwdriver to push out the metal ring from the control arm. Make sure you do both sides when you're hammering out the metal sleeve as this makes it just a bit easier.






The finished big bushings removed from both the stock and aluminum control arms.



The smaller bushing can easily be removed if you buy an exhaust adaptor, 1.5 inner diameter to whatever size you want. It's the 1.5 o.d. that you need to remove the bushing from the arm. You'll also need a 3/8 inch drive allen of any size as long as the allen part goes in the hole of the bushing. Lastly, you'll need a long 3/8 extension like was used to remove the larger bushing and a deep well socket not too long as to not let it fit into the bench vise you'll be using. I've been using a 4-1/2 inch bench vise and has worked great.




Insert the allen drive into one of the holes of the bushing and the cut 1.5 inch exhaust pipe (about 2 or so inches) onto the opposite end making sure that the bushing fits inside of the pipe and pipe fits the control arm. It should so no worries there.
Inserting it into the vice, press out the bushing as much as you can with the allen socket, then when you can't press it any further, open the vice and substitute the deep well socket in it's place to continue pressing the bushing out. You'll only be able to go so far so once you've gotten this far, remove everything from the vice, insert the long 3/8 extension into the bushing according to the pictures and simply pry it out. It's that easy to do these and don't need a machine shop to do this.





The finished product with all bushings removed.
Again, this was so simple and not complicated at all.



With the tools above and a bench vise, you should be able to do this (excluding drilling the rivets for ball joint removal) in a couple of hours or less.

I'll again update this when I press in the new bushings to the arms and will be doing the grinding next week on the aluminum arms. I'll also drill out the aluminum units next week too.
I actually enjoyed working on these today.

More on the next post.
Misnblu

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misnblu

Once the bushings were removed from the control arms, I made a template of the original, cut it to where it would fit inside of the control arm and then set in where I thought it would need to be for measuring.


I then took a digital caliper and measured at the center indentation to the template a half inch, from the bumps to the template, and then side measured to make sure that everything was centered. It's not hard to do this and can use anything that is about 1/2 inch to measure it through.
Once measured, used the template to draw out the new end that I would then cut. Again, it's quite simple to do.


On shortening these control arms from the'99 Alero or '99 Grand Am, I didn't have any power tools or grinders so had to do things kind of old school.
I went ahead and used a standard hacksaw using an 18tooth metal cut hacksaw blade.
I basically cut across the control arm end to where the new ends would be.
I then corner cut the ends as you can see by the picture.

And for the middle section, cut a "v" into the center so that things would be very close.



The near finished product and is now ready for some minor filing with a flat file to bevel the edges and a round file to take care of the excess metal in the center of the arms.

I'm hoping that I'll have all of this finished by next week.
Also, there are easier ways of doing this with power tools, tools that I don't have so am doing it the old school way.
Yes, I'm actually enjoying this by doing it the hard way. lol

Here are the pictures of the finished arm I did yesterday.
I still have the other to do and will probably do it tomorrow.

Here is the before picture of the arm before filing it down.


Here is the finished product, all done by hand. It took about an hour.




Not perfect by machining standards but perfect by me.
I'll be finishing both arms by drilling and buffing out the arms with a wire wheel for that finished product, ready to be installed.

Just a side note.
I'm almost finished with these and will hopefully have on the car by the end of Thanksgiving weekend.
I'm still waiting for the Prothanes to come in so will be finishing depending on their arrival.
I'll update the thread when I'm done with the other arm.
I'll also have the continued how to on installing the bushings without using drill presses.


Update.
I polished up both of the control arms with a wire wheel attachment to a drill for the best results.
They came out good and rather shiny but didn't want too much bling as they're control arms, meant to get dirty.
Here's the pictures of the arms done and some comarison pictures.



Here, you'll see that I had to remove the extension that was on the ball joint that usually goes into the factory arms.
This extension (you'll know what I mean when you buy the ball joint) has to be removed so that the holes can be lined up for the drilling process.
Keeping the extension will put the holes of the ball joint too far to the ouside edge of the now shortened control arms and could cause serious problems as far as strength is concerned. I used a hacksaw with a course 18tooth blade to quickly remofe the tongue off the ball joint.



Once the tongue was removed from the ball joint, I used the ball joint to make a template of the holes for drilling. I made sure that the holes were in far enough to have proper support on the arms.
I predrilled each hole with a small bit and then stepped up to a larger bit finalizing the holes with a 1/2 inch bit.
The 1/2 inch bit worked perfectly for the holes and hardware used by the ball joint manufacturer.




Here's a picture of both arms that are now done with the holes and ready for the ball joints.
I've only got one ball joint so am waiting until payday to get the other three I need to install them all to both sets of control arms.


All I'm waiting for now are the Prothane bushings.
One set was ordered a month ago and another set last week.
I'll have the how to on their installation when they arrive.

Misnblu

A quick note.
I just got the Prothane bushings in for both of the control arms and will edit this post with the final information for the completion of this.
I should have the finishing touches sometime after Christmas.

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misnblu

Last update on these control arms.
The bushings have been in and decided to get busy and finish the project.
I'll be installing the aluminum control arms in mid January along with the rest of the suspension goodies.

First, the Prothane bushings have a two piece bushing for the longer tube on the control arm. This makes it easy to install these and there's not much to show you there. It should be pretty explanatory.

Second, if you get the RKSport bushings or Energy Suspension bushings, I'd recommend not to.
They have one piece bushings for both the small tubular hole and for the flat hole. The flat is no problem to install but the long tubular hole with the one piece bushing is a real bitch.
I've given up for now on doing it because of the time consumption and will finish it later on the stock control arms I'm also doing.

Believe me, the Prothanes are the much better made units and easiest to install.


Get out your vice, an L bracket or anything that will help hold the bushing in place while you press these on.
Remember to grease the inside of the hole, the outside of the bushing and the ramp part to help it slide onto the arm.


Here you see the L bracket holding the bushing while I press the bushing onto the arm.
Remember to have the radiused part to the top of the control arm and not reversed. The instructions will help you with how to make sure.


Now as you press the bushing onto the arm, this is going to happen. I tried it several times to see if the bushing would stay straight and it didn't.
Now it's time to break out a set of channel locks once you've gotten this far and don't lose hope right about here. It's quite easy to finish.


Here you see me using the vice grip to literally help squeeze the bushing into the arm. With the pressure of the vice and you squeezing with the channel locks, should come together nicely. You may have to do this in a couple of places that are trying to be stubborn but it's quite easy to do.


Here's the bushing almost completely on and with the help of the channel locks on the top of that spot that isn't in, basically popped in with little struggle.


There you can see the bushing finally seated.
Again, it really took no strenuous effort to do this with a little manipulation of the channel locks.


The finished product and was actually the easiest to do in this whole project.

Now it's time to install this onto the car and will make my final report on how it handles.

Misnblu

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JoeLAllenClear

Wow bro, I know this was a while ago when you posted this... but MAD props!

misnblu

Thanks man.
I still don't have the control arms on the car yet. lol
I've got another car that I've been working on, driving, and the cavy is in storage, out of the weather, resting.
I just got another set of these that I'll be working on for a good friend of mine.
Thanks again man.

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JoeLAllenClear

Rawesome man! What else are you working on?

misnblu

Battery relocation NHRA/ IHRA legal.
I've got an article on that in another tech section here on the forums if you'd like to see it.

Other than that, nothing in the works for the moment.

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