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Yesterday I began rebuilding my front suspension on my 82 vette. I had bought the minor rebuild kit from ecklers that includes the ball joints and bushings for teh control arms. Well, when I pulled the lower control arm out, it looked like this. The tight side of me wants to just clean it up and repaint it. But something tells me this has seen it's better days. Also, if I blast it, and powdercoat it, I might wind up having as much invested that to just buy a new one off ecklers that already has the bushings and ball joint installed (about $180 each).What would you do?
it looks rebuildable., hard to tell till you clean up that spring pocket. easy way is to get another one. Ecklers has a $100 core charge. so thats $280 plus shipping them your old one. I personally dont trust Ecklers for quality parts anymore. Other vendors its $225 no core. www.ikerds.com
Last edited by speedreed8; Feb 2, 2015 at 02:32 PM.
Unless that spring pocket is really pitted and thin. There's nothing wrong with that arm. Sand it, paint it and pop new bushings in! The aftermarket arms are nice and offer some more adjustment for track racing. Other than that, it's not worth buying, the stock arms are very strong and work very well with poly bushings. That's what I did.
Those look perfectly acceptable to keep….just from the pictures, not seeing them in person. Whenever possible, I always try and retain OEM parts unless you plan to upgrade to an aftermarket tubular, offset arms which I am assuming you are not. As htown81vette's pictures show, you can make the OEM arms look better than they came from the factory...
Need advice on Lower Control Arm
