Ok gentlemen and any ladies that may wander in...
Ive taken a couple pics of what Im going to explain. First the pic of a typical crossbar from a Toyota upper control arm. The bushings below it are S-10 ES bushings.
This is what the crossbar looks like out of the arm. I would like to be able to have customers use the stock crossbars since that would make the arms easy to build. But there are so many different minitrucks that have crossbar upper arms and I dont think any 2 have the same diameter crossbar ends. So that would mean getting several different poly bushings. And the main reason I dont use stock crossbars is that the shafts are almost always metric. Therefore I use the same poly bushing on all my minitruck tube arms.
I make them for Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, S-10 and now Luv.
Really the only things that matter are the distances outlined here as A B C and D.
First is A, the distance between the mounting bolts. As I have built all these I have found that almost all minitrucks use 13mm or 14mm bolts. These I can replace easily with 1/2" or 9/16" bolts and have no issues. Most cases I dont include mounting bolts and have the customer use the stock bolts. Plus since the 13mm and 14mm are so close to 1/2" and 9/16" I can use 1" DOM with either a 1/2" hole or a 9/16" hole and Im covered. The thicknesses I order are .250" wall or .188" wall and the bolts go right in.
Next for the ends that hold the bushings I use 7/8" DOM since the poly buhsing has a 7/8" I.D. The 7/8" DOM has a .188" wall and that leaves a 1/2" hole. The poly bushing by the way is the Energy Suspension graphite impregnated polyurethane one they sell for use in stock S-10 upper arms. That makes them readily available since the same bushing fits many other GM vehicles.
Inside the 7/8" DOM I force a 1/2" boolt with the head cut off. I leave some sticking out for a nut. I then weld the tubes onto the small tubes that mount the arm. The only thing I have to do is make sure the holes are the same distance apart as stock. Heres a pic of an S-10 crossbar I made so you can see how I make them.
I like having the bolts stick out the end rather than have a threaded hole. With a threaded hole theres always the possibility of the bolt backing out, especially with the arm going up and down thousands of times a day in norman driving.
On the threads sticking out I use all steel stover locknuts and they never back off. simple solution solves the problem. And since I use the same bushing on all these different arms I can use the same ends to hold them. so the crossbar and mounting points issue is solved.
Next is the length of the arm from pivot point in the center of the crossbar to the center of the balljoint (b). A simple measure of that solves that issue as any balljoint has the shaft in the center and its easy to line that up while making the jig.
The next thing is C and thats whether the balljoint is centered or not. Most imports are because they can make one arm fit either side. This one as you can see in the pic is centered. Even if it were offset I still make both sides off the same jig and flip one over. the balljoint angle is a flat 0 degrees and the tubes are flat out as well which works well on a bagged truck.
The next thing is D which is easy because the bushings I use are usually shorter than the factory ones. so no clearance issues there and since these poly bushings are graphite impregnated they never need grease.
So as you can see I already have the uppers figured out and its just a matter of building the jig. These will be no different than any other minitruck upper crossbar arm I make.
I will post pics as soon as I have one made.
When I get ready to do the lowers I will post the same pics and show how those will be made. I have those figured out as well.
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it is looking like it will be a good one.
Sorry, meant coilovers. And I believe the arms are the same, aren't they? (asking someone who knows more about LUVs than me; I've only seen my 4x4...)