Anyone ever raise the front control arm mounts
 

I had a 89 suburban with air bags and air ride controll arms a while ago. The front lower control arm mounts hit everything. It ended up getting all messed up in a short time. I just got a 68 suburban and am going to do a basic air bag set up on it with 16 to 18 inch wheels. I have seen the raised cross members and I know you can buy some really nice raised ones now. I am thinking I can just raise the mounts up into the subframe on the cross member. Has anyone done this?

Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

Search using the terms 'notched', 'pancaked', or 'sectioned' crossmember for ideas & info. I have a sectioned 1 3/8" crossmember in my dually.

Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

Yep that is what I did and read everything. What I asking is different. I want to know if anyone raised just the lower control arm mounting points.

Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

Gotcha. Good luck.

Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

you can raise the ball joint with a lot of work but the whole arm ? not sure

Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

I would think if you raised just the lower it would throw your geometry off in a very bad way. There is a reason people go with a sectioned or raised crossmember rather than just moving the lower up.

But maybe you are exploring something nobody has thought about.

Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

Raising just the lower control arm mounts will definately throw off the geometry in the front suspension. It will mess up the camber swing through out the wheel travel up and down, and could possibly change bump steer depending on how all the geometry worked out. All of this will cause dangerous driving conditions, unless properly engineered. Now if you could raise upper and lower control arm mounts, and some how insure they all stayed in the same realtionship one to another, and was strong, it could work. Depends on how much work, engineering, and possibly liability you are willing to accept. Paul

Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

That's what sectioning (aka pancaked) accomplishes. buy moving the crossmember mount position down, you are moving the arm mounts up without changing the geometry (if done correctly).

Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

There's also the possibility that slight change between the upper & lower mounting points could improve the camber curve (meaning the GM truck set-ups were not engineered for handling/camber gain). In order to say it's good or bad would require plotting it all out for evaluation.

If a guy doesn't know how to evaluate the changes, it's best to keep things consistent (IE move both upper & lower together) to help minimize potential screw-ups.

Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

NoLimitRob is working on exactly this- I'm curious to see the results...

Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

This might be what your looking for.....http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...ad.php?t=60649
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Re: Anyone ever raise the front controll arm mounts
 

Very true, I was speaking in terms of the average home mechanic with limited fabricating skills. This is outside of my abilities, hence the reason I have my chassis fabricator take care of stuff that is above my pay-grade. The suspension in my truck was designed specifically for drag racing, as it has almost zero camber movement, and less than 1/8" of bump steer. Again, I did not design this, too much math/geometry that I have no idea how to use to gain the needed information to complete this type of fabrication. Paul

Re: Anyone ever raise the front control arm mounts
 

fastbagged68 that was a good link thanks! I think raising them on something really dropped will help. I can not see any negative effects from this. It may even help bump steer. From what I can see I think the upper ball joint may need to be angled down .

Re: Anyone ever raise the front control arm mounts
 

I did it on mine, reworked the stock cross member so that the arms were moved up 3" and inward 1-1/8". Did the same for the uppers. I am not using that cross member now but there should be pics somewhere in my build thread showing it.