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Installed the LG Motorsports drop spindles this weekend
6 Attachment(s)
Well this weekend I started to install the LG Motorsports spindles that I have had sitting in the garage for over two months. I was hoping to have them installed by the tuner when they did the EForce install but they opted out. Right off the bat I have to say that this is not rocket science and having done many spindle swaps over the past 40 years I had a high sense of confidence going in. Last year I had done a Bilstein Coil over swap on my AMG and it was a PIA but nothing super hard. I have to say that I was about to get a huge reality check LOL. I started the install early on Saturday morning hoping to be done by evening so the car would be ready for the Corvettes and Coffee event on Sunday, that was not going to happen. By 2:00 PM on Saturday afternoon I had only completed the two front spindles once again not a super complex job just time consuming. The issue I encountered was that the lower control arm ball joint would not pop the other two you untighten the nut and hit it with a dead blow hammer it and would pop. The lower one not a chance. I had also ordered the Kent Moore ball joint separator tool J-42188 – B (which comes with the low profile hex key very important as you see later) The hex key alone is the same part number but ending in A. You will need this tool and BTW the generic ones will not work on our C7s they don’t reach the joint bolt or damage the bolt. So all in all it took two days to complete this job.
So the fronts were pretty straight forward, remove the wheel, remove the caliper (note font just let it hang), remove the rotor, remove the wheel speed senor (don’t damage it), remove the nuts on the ball joint and separate them. When you get to the lower ball joint I had read how you just hit it with a hammer and they would pop but that was not the case I wacked it one time and nothing… That was a sign of what was to come. I used the separator tool and cranked it down using a ratchet and a breaker bar till I could not turn it any further and no pop. At that moment I took a BFH and a long punch and wacked the center of the bolt a few times… like 10 or so! It finally pop and came loose. Once it pops you have to put a 6 MM hex key into the bolt to keep it from turning as you unscrew the nut. This is slow work… Once you nut is off you can pull the spindle off the car and start to remove the bearing hubs off. Let me warn you that you will need a BIG air powered impact wrench or a portable one that is powerful. I have A Ryobi portable that is super powerful and it would not break the three bolts that hold the hub onto the spindle. I had to break out my big air impact to get it to budge. Once you get the hub off you will have to trim 6 MM of material off the rear hub cover so it will fit in the new spindle not a hard to do but you will need a table top grinder, not a job for the Dremel. Not sure why LG has not corrected that but once again not a show stopper. Something else that you will need to do is re-tap the three holes that are used to attach the brakes cooling spoilers to the spindle. When I test fit the plastic piece with the OEM torx screws I immediately noticed that the thread pitch was not the same. I went and checked all four and found the same issue on all of them, quick fix but once again could be an issue if you don’t have the tools readily available. Reassembly is the reverse install the hub into the spindle apply red lock tight to each of the bolts, insert using an impact gun and torque down. Install the plastic brake cooling spoiler, install the spindle back into the car. You hand tighten the nuts on the ball joints but you will have to use the hex key again to keep the bolt from spinning till the spindle is compress into the ball joint, then you can remove the hex and start to crank on the sucker till it seats all the way. I used a breaker bar to assist but it is still very slow going getting that bottom ball joint to seat all the way. Once done put the rotor back on make sure you don’t forget the bolt that holds the rotor to the hub, install the caliper, excellent opportunity to deep clean them. The rears do have an added complexity which make them a tad bit longer to install. At this point you will realize why that 6 MM low profile key that came with the tool is so important. Same step above but somewhat different. First thing is you need to get some slack in your E parking brake, you can do this ahead of time by putting your foot on the brake and the holding down the E brake switch in the console and when it flashes let it go and hit it one time. That will take the tension out and give you the slack you will need to be able to remove the rear drum brake pads. If that does not work then you can always undo the rear brake cable in the rear by the differential. Somewhat more time consuming but it does the same thing. You will also need to remove the half shaft nut and yes you will need an impact wrench, make sure to open up the dented nut safety but don’t go apes on it and damage it. So remove the E parking brake pads, then remove the brake cooling spoiler which is a PIA, then remove the speed sensor from the Spindle be careful not to damage it and let it hang with the caliper (supported of course) now you can start on the nuts. The tie rod and the upper spindle nut come off very easily and pop when you hit them with a dead blow hammer. Now another complexity comes into play which is the lower ball joint nut, it sits right under the half shaft. Untighten the nut on the lower ball joint, put the Ken Moore tool on it and start to crank it down. Once you get to the point where it will not go any further break out the BFH and whack the spindle from the bottom where the calipers mount. Since the nut is covered by the shaft you cannot hit it from above like the front. You will have to whack it like a read headed step son. Once it pops remove it from the top ball joint lean the spindle towards you and pull toward till the shaft clears the bearing hub. Once free of the shaft pull up and start the transfer of the bearing hub. The hub does not have a rear cover so you remove it the same as you did when you removed the fronts, remember to use red lock tight. Put the spindle back into the car using the reverse steps noting to be careful when inserting the hub onto the shaft splines. Take your time and make sure they are lined up and don’t beat on it, use a impact gun to tighten and then torque. Don’t forget to dent the safety key on the shaft nut. Tighten down the top ball joint leave the tie rod ball joint for last because as you discovered when you removed it this gives you the ability to rotate the spindle left and right making access easier. At this point you will realize the importance of that little hex key that came with the tool. You see a regular hex key will not fit between the nut and the shaft, it is once again slow going till the spindle is compressed enough on the ball joint so it does not turn. Once that happens you can put the hex aside and just go downtown on that nut till the spindle is completely seated. Tighten the remaining two ball joints the upper uses a 6MM as you are aware already but the tie rod in the rear uses a 5MM. Crank them down till seated. Install the E parking brake drum pads and related hardware back. Now reinstall the brake cooling spoiler but only install the two bottom screws leave the top one until you have routed the brake and speed sensor through the hole in the spoiler. Once routed you can put the last screw in the spoiler on the top. Install the rotor and make sure you don’t forget the rotor retention screw and then the install the caliper. The last thing you need to do at this point is take the slack out of the E Brake. My overall impression is that this is not rocket science as I mentioned at the start but it is also not for the weak of heart. It is complex, long and requires you have certain tools. The fit of the spindles outside of the re-tapping was spot on, so much so that when I test drove the car it did not pull left or right and tracked straight. It is getting an alignment tomorrow just to make sure we are all within specs but that was surprising how well it tracked. A note for those of us that have the brake cooling spoilers you will have to trim 6 MM off of the bottom of the front spoiler so it does not hit the wheel weight. On my car the wheel weight was on the inside edge of the rim and the spoiler would hit it. The quality of the product is excellent and looks well engineered. I was a little weary before I ordered them because I had read so many responses on the forum about several of them shipping with dings, but that was not the case with mine they were well packed and looked fresh. The car drove very well. I put 60 miles on it late last night using the on and off ramps on the interstate and I found the car to be planted and very flat. I also have the LG sway bars as well and in combo with the spindles I think this is a great pairing. My GS already handled great right out of the box but now it is a totally different car. So is it worth it? The spindles are on the pricy side compared to drop bolts or even just cutting the drop bolt pads which achieves a lower center of gravity but I was worried that going the rout of the lowering bolts could impact my mag ride by shortening shock travel which is what the lowering bolts do. I did the lowering bolts on my C6 and was very happy with the results but I also did not have mag ride. That was my driver for my selection. The spindles dropped the car 1” in the front and rear which is what LG advertised. In the end I have to say that I’m happy with the results but if I ever do it again, I’ll find a shop and let them do it.. LOL Below are some pictures. I did a photo chop with a before and after for comparison… enjoy! |
ttt
I cant believe you did that over the weekend. Crap it had to take you over half the time to write all of this up in here.:rofl::hide: By the way the car looks nice lowered down like it does... Robert
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Originally Posted by robert miller
(Post 1597008699)
I cant believe you did that over the weekend. Crap it had to take you over half the time to write all of this up in here.:rofl::hide: By the way the car looks nice lowered down like it does... Robert
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Originally Posted by snow
(Post 1597009471)
sorry I know it was long winded.. :eek::eek: :leaving:
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Looks great and I always wondered what the install would be like. Now I know:) |
Looks awesome snow. Beautiful car!!! Now hook me up on the X-Pipe!! Lol gary |
I had Rich and his crew at Abel Chevrolet install mine last week, Car looks great and rides better then stock..
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Originally Posted by Puttnutt24
(Post 1597017366)
I had Rich and his crew at Abel Chevrolet install mine last week, Car looks great and rides better then stock..
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Originally Posted by snow
(Post 1597017616)
When the turner opted out I contacted three Chevy dealers in my area and I could not get a single one to do it. Even the dealer that I purchase the car from and get my service done said no and they are pretty cool guys.
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Originally Posted by spinkick
(Post 1597026134)
Why doesnt anyone want to do them? Liability? Altering suspension no nos?
The dealers down here dont do anything that is aftermarket. When I get my Akra I wanted it installed ASAP so I asked my dealer and he said no way. I asked why and he said that they dont do aftermarket work. I called around to others and got the same response. |
Originally Posted by snow
(Post 1597008562)
Well this weekend I started to install the LG Motorsports spindles that I have had sitting in the garage for over two months. I was hoping to have them installed by the tuner when they did the EForce install but they opted out. Right off the bat I have to say that this is not rocket science and having done many spindle swaps over the past 40 years I had a high sense of confidence going in. Last year I had done a Bilstein Coil over swap on my AMG and it was a PIA but nothing super hard. I have to say that I was about to get a huge reality check LOL. I started the install early on Saturday morning hoping to be done by evening so the car would be ready for the Corvettes and Coffee event on Sunday, that was not going to happen. By 2:00 PM on Saturday afternoon I had only completed the two front spindles once again not a super complex job just time consuming. The issue I encountered was that the lower control arm ball joint would not pop the other two you untighten the nut and hit it with a dead blow hammer it and would pop. The lower one not a chance. I had also ordered the Kent Moore ball joint separator tool J-42188 – B (which comes with the low profile hex key very important as you see later) The hex key alone is the same part number but ending in A. You will need this tool and BTW the generic ones will not work on our C7s they don’t reach the joint bolt or damage the bolt. So all in all it took two days to complete this job.
So the fronts were pretty straight forward, remove the wheel, remove the caliper (note font just let it hang), remove the rotor, remove the wheel speed senor (don’t damage it), remove the nuts on the ball joint and separate them. When you get to the lower ball joint I had read how you just hit it with a hammer and they would pop but that was not the case I wacked it one time and nothing… That was a sign of what was to come. I used the separator tool and cranked it down using a ratchet and a breaker bar till I could not turn it any further and no pop. At that moment I took a BFH and a long punch and wacked the center of the bolt a few times… like 10 or so! It finally pop and came loose. Once it pops you have to put a 6 MM hex key into the bolt to keep it from turning as you unscrew the nut. This is slow work… Once you nut is off you can pull the spindle off the car and start to remove the bearing hubs off. Let me warn you that you will need a BIG air powered impact wrench or a portable one that is powerful. I have A Ryobi portable that is super powerful and it would not break the three bolts that hold the hub onto the spindle. I had to break out my big air impact to get it to budge. Once you get the hub off you will have to trim 6 MM of material off the rear hub cover so it will fit in the new spindle not a hard to do but you will need a table top grinder, not a job for the Dremel. Not sure why LG has not corrected that but once again not a show stopper. Something else that you will need to do is re-tap the three holes that are used to attach the brakes cooling spoilers to the spindle. When I test fit the plastic piece with the OEM torx screws I immediately noticed that the thread pitch was not the same. I went and checked all four and found the same issue on all of them, quick fix but once again could be an issue if you don’t have the tools readily available. Reassembly is the reverse install the hub into the spindle apply red lock tight to each of the bolts, insert using an impact gun and torque down. Install the plastic brake cooling spoiler, install the spindle back into the car. You hand tighten the nuts on the ball joints but you will have to use the hex key again to keep the bolt from spinning till the spindle is compress into the ball joint, then you can remove the hex and start to crank on the sucker till it seats all the way. I used a breaker bar to assist but it is still very slow going getting that bottom ball joint to seat all the way. Once done put the rotor back on make sure you don’t forget the bolt that holds the rotor to the hub, install the caliper, excellent opportunity to deep clean them. The rears do have an added complexity which make them a tad bit longer to install. At this point you will realize why that 6 MM low profile key that came with the tool is so important. Same step above but somewhat different. First thing is you need to get some slack in your E parking brake, you can do this ahead of time by putting your foot on the brake and the holding down the E brake switch in the console and when it flashes let it go and hit it one time. That will take the tension out and give you the slack you will need to be able to remove the rear drum brake pads. If that does not work then you can always undo the rear brake cable in the rear by the differential. Somewhat more time consuming but it does the same thing. You will also need to remove the half shaft nut and yes you will need an impact wrench, make sure to open up the dented nut safety but don’t go apes on it and damage it. So remove the E parking brake pads, then remove the brake cooling spoiler which is a PIA, then remove the speed sensor from the Spindle be careful not to damage it and let it hang with the caliper (supported of course) now you can start on the nuts. The tie rod and the upper spindle nut come off very easily and pop when you hit them with a dead blow hammer. Now another complexity comes into play which is the lower ball joint nut, it sits right under the half shaft. Untighten the nut on the lower ball joint, put the Ken Moore tool on it and start to crank it down. Once you get to the point where it will not go any further break out the BFH and whack the spindle from the bottom where the calipers mount. Since the nut is covered by the shaft you cannot hit it from above like the front. You will have to whack it like a read headed step son. Once it pops remove it from the top ball joint lean the spindle towards you and pull toward till the shaft clears the bearing hub. Once free of the shaft pull up and start the transfer of the bearing hub. The hub does not have a rear cover so you remove it the same as you did when you removed the fronts, remember to use red lock tight. Put the spindle back into the car using the reverse steps noting to be careful when inserting the hub onto the shaft splines. Take your time and make sure they are lined up and don’t beat on it, use a impact gun to tighten and then torque. Don’t forget to dent the safety key on the shaft nut. Tighten down the top ball joint leave the tie rod ball joint for last because as you discovered when you removed it this gives you the ability to rotate the spindle left and right making access easier. At this point you will realize the importance of that little hex key that came with the tool. You see a regular hex key will not fit between the nut and the shaft, it is once again slow going till the spindle is compressed enough on the ball joint so it does not turn. Once that happens you can put the hex aside and just go downtown on that nut till the spindle is completely seated. Tighten the remaining two ball joints the upper uses a 6MM as you are aware already but the tie rod in the rear uses a 5MM. Crank them down till seated. Install the E parking brake drum pads and related hardware back. Now reinstall the brake cooling spoiler but only install the two bottom screws leave the top one until you have routed the brake and speed sensor through the hole in the spoiler. Once routed you can put the last screw in the spoiler on the top. Install the rotor and make sure you don’t forget the rotor retention screw and then the install the caliper. The last thing you need to do at this point is take the slack out of the E Brake. My overall impression is that this is not rocket science as I mentioned at the start but it is also not for the weak of heart. It is complex, long and requires you have certain tools. The fit of the spindles outside of the re-tapping was spot on, so much so that when I test drove the car it did not pull left or right and tracked straight. It is getting an alignment tomorrow just to make sure we are all within specs but that was surprising how well it tracked. A note for those of us that have the brake cooling spoilers you will have to trim 6 MM off of the bottom of the front spoiler so it does not hit the wheel weight. On my car the wheel weight was on the inside edge of the rim and the spoiler would hit it. The quality of the product is excellent and looks well engineered. I was a little weary before I ordered them because I had read so many responses on the forum about several of them shipping with dings, but that was not the case with mine they were well packed and looked fresh. The car drove very well. I put 60 miles on it late last night using the on and off ramps on the interstate and I found the car to be planted and very flat. I also have the LG sway bars as well and in combo with the spindles I think this is a great pairing. My GS already handled great right out of the box but now it is a totally different car. So is it worth it? The spindles are on the pricy side compared to drop bolts or even just cutting the drop bolt pads which achieves a lower center of gravity but I was worried that going the rout of the lowering bolts could impact my mag ride by shortening shock travel which is what the lowering bolts do. I did the lowering bolts on my C6 and was very happy with the results but I also did not have mag ride. That was my driver for my selection. The spindles dropped the car 1” in the front and rear which is what LG advertised. In the end I have to say that I’m happy with the results but if I ever do it again, I’ll find a shop and let them do it.. LOL Below are some pictures. I did a photo chop with a before and after for comparison… enjoy! |
Originally Posted by dariodelconte
(Post 1597030688)
can I please ask you a question, why??
I changed the spindles for a few reasons. 1- I wanted to lower the center of gravity of the car 2- I wanted to remove some of the excessive wheel gap 3- I did not want to use lowering bolts or cut the pads on the OEM ones. I did not wanted to effect the mag ride system. hope this helps.:rock: |
Originally Posted by snow
(Post 1597030772)
why as in why did I write some much or as in why did I change the spindles :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
I changed the spindles for a few reasons. 1- I wanted to lower the center of gravity of the car 2- I wanted to remove some of the excessive wheel gap 3- I did not want to use lowering bolts or cut the pads on the OEM ones. I did not wanted to effect the mag ride system. hope this helps.:rock: |
Originally Posted by robert miller
(Post 1597033952)
:crazy2::crazy2: So you did the coilovers & also have the mag ride on the car & that didn't do nothing on a code. Robert
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Nice work :cheers:
Regards Chip |
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