Tubular Control arms?

[Tom Kirkham]

The 427 rear suspension has it own set of problems. For example the trailing link on the 427 has a rod end on one end and a spherical bearing mounted into a cross sleeve welded onto the other end at an angle. By making the trailing link in this manner, the rear toe adjustment is limited to one complete turn of the trailing link. The other bad thing about this arrangement is having to remove the trailing link from the frame to turn it, greatly increasing the time to do the alignment. Almost everyone has updated this piece to have rod ends on both ends.

Other issues on original style suspensions are the brake rotor are behind the hub, making changing brake rotors time consuming and messy.

Setting front caster is very time consuming and limited. This is why adjustable upper control arms are so popular.

On 427 Cobras front lower control arms sagged. Comp and SC cars had angle iron reinforcements welded on the underside.

On the rear lower control arm, the original Rose bearing is no longer commercially available. Forcing a change to a wider bearing. This is not without its own set of problems...

Front spindle flexes too much.

Setting up the rear upright bearings is very time consuming if done correctly. The distance piece needs to be cut from hardened steel and trimmed to length. Using shims to space out the bearings will not work as they will break and go through the bearings. That is why we changed out to a cartridge bearing.

Rear upper control arm rod end is prone to breaking on a street car. Comp cars used a bigger rod end.

289 roller bearings will not stand up to comp use.

There are more problems, but this is enough for now.

I would be very careful of having someone just "fab up" control arms without them being aware of all the compromises that are being made. Makes me very concerned that being in Germany this car will be driven on the autobahn or even the Nuremberg ring...