Lenghtening Trailing Arms????
 

So I am in the process of baggin my 72' GMC BURB right now, and the drop is so drastic that the rear wheels have moved forward in the wheel opening, and the axle as well in the step notch ( it is hitting at the perch in the front), so to keep it centered and from looking ghetto, I am just going to stretch the trailing arms about 1-1 1/2"s and plate them. Do you guys see any potential problems with this, or have any of you already done this to realign your wheels?

Thanks

Robert

You might think about fabbing some new, longer trailing arms.
If that is not an option, and you have to cut the original arms, cut the arms at least at a 45 degree angle, this will give you more weld surface which is stronger, AND use a fish plate on either side for reinforcement.

The military or the FAA has standards as to repairing tubular aircraft parts.
They tell you to make a cut of no less than 30 degrees, and how to reinforce the repair.
But then again you are not flying at 30,000 feet. (are you!!! :lol: :hm: )

I do fab work. Mostly drag race cars and street stuff.
Lots of chromoly and mild steel stuff.
My son and I are also going into the StainlessSteel exhaust area.
He's into Volkswagens a '03 GTI

:fb: Would there be an interest in custom built traling arms for the older trucks???

arequickfab@hotmail.com

If anyone wants to give the demensions or a working drawing I could estimate a price for a fabbed, TIG welded set of arms.
Just thinking out loud.

Just my .02

:gmc:CCDually

If you were just moving them a little you could add spacers where the arm brackets bolt to the cross member. In your case, why not move the whole trailing arm cross member back the desired distance? That'd be a fairly simple solution. Of course you may have to remove the bed and maybe the cab to access the rivets though.

You could do what Slammed said. We did that on our shop truck. Pretty easy to do. Plasma out the rivets and move the crossmember to the location you want. Or you could raise your mounting point on your crossmember. Making the center of the arc higher. Thats what I did on my suburban.

I'll have to crawl underneath it and take a look athe the crosmember, that seems feasible, although removing the body is not really an option, (working in the driveway, and it's a Burb) I could section the trailing arms in that time. I will check out the crossmember though, although It houses the carrier bearing for the drive shaft, which I guess I would probably have an extra inch in the slip yolk, so it shouldn't be a problem right?

Thanks for the replies

Robert

Maybe you could fab longer flanges for the control arm brackets,cut off the old ones at the bend,then weld and maybe gusset the new ones in place.that way the positioning is bang on and you don't have to mess with the rivets.

I agree with slammed67. The easiest option without removing the cab would be to drill out the rivets that hold the trailing arm brackets to the crossmember and make blocks the thickness you want to move the arms.Then just bolt them between the crossmember and the trailg arm bracket.

Somethings to consider before getting started.You might need to lenthen the brake line,move the trac bar mount and check clearence with fuel tank.The spacer sounds like the quickest way to move the arms.

I already removed the crossmember in front and rear of the axle, and have temporarily relocated the lines. Before I didn't understand about just the brackets, I thought you guys were saying to move the whole crossmember, building spacers seems easy enough, but will that effect my carrier bearing too? It seems, like I would have to move that mount aswell?

Thanks alot, I will be doing it on Sunday, if it's not snowing too bad (working in the driveway) So thanks

Robert

Just make spacers for the trailing arm bracket.Not the crossmember.The crossmember and the bearing would stay where they are.The spacers would move the trailing arm strait back.Replace the rivits with grade8 bolts

So the driveshaft will slide in that carrier bearing to compensate for the extra inch or so?

Thanks

Robert

I reread what was said before,and went out and looked at mine.You are a pain in the you know what for bringing this idea up.Now my wheels don't look right!If You have the cross member loose,i would try moving it first.If there is enough in the slipjoint You wouldn't need to do anything to the driveshaft.With the blocks You might.It's been so long since I've had the driveshaft off,I forget how much room there is.