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Lowering my amazon (balljoint flip)

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Tagurit

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Joined
Mar 1, 2019
Location
Edmonton
So I installed classicswedes 100mm suspension.
And I heard of you move the lower ball joint to the upper part of control arm it will help lower it more.
So my question.
So I simply just unbolt, move to upper part of control arm.
Thanks
 
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Don't think about it.
If you have a little more than zero knowledge about bolts-stressing bolts-bending you even wouldn't think about it.

If 100mm isn't enough to you buy a Japanese car. Or do a body chop

Did you drove the Amazon lowered 100mm?

I don't like this "modification"
Undrivable, my opinion

Looks "good" for some at the parking lot

Good luck, Kay
 
Tons of people have flipped the ball joints on the control arms. If you really want to feel good about the bolts all you have to do is reinforce the back side of the control arm. I don't have any experience with a rally setup or anything, but I've put many thousands of miles on my wagon doing that very same thing.

Edit: This puts all the spring load on the mounting bolts themselves, not on base of the control arm. The concern about bolt fatigue and failure is valid.

There have been loads of people to lower a 122 this much as well. Does it change the suspension/steering geometry? Yes. Can you make it still work safely? Yes.
 
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Don't think about it.
If you have a little more than zero knowledge about bolts-stressing bolts-bending you even wouldn't think about it.

If 100mm isn't enough to you buy a Japanese car. Or do a body chop

Did you drove the Amazon lowered 100mm?

I don't like this "modification"
Undrivable, my opinion

Looks "good" for some at the parking lot

Good luck, Kay

Ok..you clearly have no knowledge with this subject so please refrain from making such a useless post..
It has been done many times, this is why I am asking.
Your post wasn't helpful, so thanks for coming out budd..
 
Tons of people have flipped the ball joints on the control arms. If you really want to feel good about the bolts all you have to do is reinforce the back side of the control arm. I don't have any experience with a rally setup or anything, but I've put many thousands of miles on my wagon doing that very same thing.

There have been loads of people to lower a 122 this much as well. Does it change the suspension/steering geometry? Yes. Can you make it still work safely? Yes.


So from my understanding... you're just relocating the ball joint from the bottom of the control arm to the top, correct?
 
If you flip the ball joints, take the time to repair and reinforce the control arms. These were in single shear to begin with so there’s that. Personally I would be looking to move them to the top by adding piece that puts the bolts in double shear and welding it to the control arm. My thoughts would be to weld U channel to the top of the mounting spaces, then tie the u channels together with a plate, also a good idea to add some thickness to the underside.
 
If you flip the ball joints, take the time to repair and reinforce the control arms. These were in single shear to begin with so there?s that. Personally I would be looking to move them to the top by adding piece that puts the bolts in double shear and welding it to the control arm. My thoughts would be to weld U channel to the top of the mounting spaces, then tie the u channels together with a plate, also a good idea to add some thickness to the underside.

Yeah man. I was going to re enforce the control arm. Welding them together essentially..so of bolts sheared, the welds would hold it together as a safety backup.
Thanks for input.
 
So from my understanding... you're just relocating the ball joint from the bottom of the control arm to the top, correct?

Yes. It should be pretty easy to see when you get down there looking at everything how you could reinforce it.

What cwdodson is saying is to change the mounting point so that the bolts are much less likely to fail in the first place, putting less shear stress in a single plane.

In the picture below the stock mounting point is fashioned like the top. You can imagine the ball joint being the P vector on the right side.

main-qimg-2b74203c0cc6b292424fa189ad7eaba8


Another thing you want to look at if you have all of this out is reinforcing the hat where the shock bolts into. It's thin and they commonly crack.
 
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^ see that post. Your stock stuff is in single shear, bottom plate being the ball joint and top being the control arm, when you move it to the top, adding a plate that is also attached to the control arm to sandwich the ball joint is going to be the safest way to go. This will put the bolts in double shear making it way harder for the bolt to yield.
 
Ok..you clearly have no knowledge with this subject so please refrain from making such a useless post..
It has been done many times, this is why I am asking.
Your post wasn't helpful, so thanks for coming out budd..

The fact it has been done many times does not prove it is a good idea. I wouldn't be the slightest bit concerned about any difference in shear of the bolts whether the ball joint is mounted on the top or bottom side of the control arm. It would make no difference. What I would be concerned about is whether the bolts are merely securing the ball joint in place or carrying the entire load the ball joint sees. If the spring acts against the lower control arm, what you are suggesting and people are doing is VERY risky. That is probably what mocambique-amazon is trying to tell you. A little FEA work tell the story
 
The fact it has been done many times does not prove it is a good idea. I wouldn't be the slightest bit concerned about any difference in shear of the bolts whether the ball joint is mounted on the top or bottom side of the control arm. It would make no difference. What I would be concerned about is whether the bolts are merely securing the ball joint in place or carrying the entire load the ball joint sees. If the spring acts against the lower control arm, what you are suggesting and people are doing is VERY risky. That is probably what mocambique-amazon is trying to tell you. A little FEA work tell the story

Fair point. I'll edit my top post.

What we really need are a set of drop spindles.
 
You can also cup the lower control arm so the spring sits lower. Here is a set I did


141885981.jpg



This guy did it with a 142
https://www.ipdusa.com/blogs/59/bryan-cottrell-graphic-designer-marketing-coordinator

That's what I pictured based on the ball joint design. OP, mocambique-amazon is correct. Moving the ball joint to the top side of that control arm is a BAD idea. You are liable to tear those bolts right through the control arm. The above is a good solution to what you are trying to achieve.
 
You can say bad idea, etc. If you can show me a person who has done it, and proved failure. I will then be more concerned.
Yea many people have done it, is it correct, no as we are not engineers.
But my plan is to run a sandwich and welds to the control arm.
I do like the cupping idea, but then again you will need to alter shocks again.
Anyways thanks for all the posts. I will let you know how it goes. Thanks
 
Actually, I am an Engineer. There is a way to move that ball joint to the top side of the control arm and still have it be safe. Merely bolting it to the top side would almost guarantee failure of the control arm. You need to come up with a way to spread the load of the fasteners out over a much larger area of that sheet metal. Also, carrying the load on those fasteners in tension is not a good idea either.
 
I have already mentioned that I have seen the bolts break before with the ball joint mounted in the original position. The ball joint will still say in place but be rather floppy. Moving the ball joint to the without some kind of extra clamping would result in the spindle just dropping out and complete loss of steering in the event of the bolts failing.
 
I think any bolt breaking in this situation would be due the the suspension bottoming out. (Operator Abuse)
I think it would be more likely for the bolts to pull through the control arm with the ball joint mounted on top.
I don't see how this is any less safe than using a long shank ball joint.
Look up in your engineering book how strong a 5/16 bolt is and multiply by 4.

I understand the engineering school taught you to avoid this type of fastening, but the sky is not falling.
These models have been around for friggin ever and if this was an issue Ralph Nader (or his Swedish equiv.) would have had a fit.
 
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