Nova ?

[Big Irish]

I bought a truck with 74 nova front clip .the a arms have been cut and shortened/narrowed .is this a safe and common practice ? Thanks
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[gibbons]

can you post some pics, of it. I also just bought me a 48 with a nova clip and wonder about it but my arms arn't shortened

[Big Irish]

I will try .not having any luck posting pics .but will try
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[lwilliam22]

I've never heard or seen anybody do that. That is a spot that always has a lot of strain on it. All I've seen is cutting the middle cross member to shorten the overall width. Is yours a real steer? If so I would love to see the steering column to steering box setup. I am dealing with that right now.
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[wpotter]

If the clip is off of a 74 it should be the rear steer. These sub frames are narrower than the later models so why would they cut the arms down more? Maybe its a later model sub frame that is wider, still not a good idea. There are companies that make new control arms to narrow the front end width.

[MrDude_1]

while i have seen plenty of stamped steel arms cut and braced for bags, or just braced for autocross... i have never seen one cut into two pieces and shortened.
off the top of my head, i dont see how it could be done, and not compromise safety, but i'll give the builder the benefit of the doubt until i see some pictures...
but really, if it was my truck i would get aftermarket tubular arms to fit it.

[Houston54]

I would suggest not driving the truck and obtaining replacement control arms. In addition to the safety aspects the steering geometry is probably compromised.

I would not trust modified control arms as they could fail at the worst possible time and cause injury to someone other than yourself.

Post some pictures. Maybe it was well done but that would still not calm my concerns.

I have seen control arms with the coil spring pocket deepened but narrowing a stressed member such as a control arm sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Good luck.

[S10Fan]

Let me say first that I have no idea how your a-arms were re-welded, quality of the weld, or skills of the person doing the welding. I'd have someone experienced take a look at your front end and go from there.

OK, having said all that, cutting and shortening A-Arms is a common practice in the circle track racing world. As a former tech guy I can tell you that guys did it all the time to get camber setup they wanted. I've seem some A-Arms that were cut, welded, and looked factory, I never witnessed a failure either. Of course, altering A-Arms wasn't allowed so I had some known factory pieces to compare with. The goal for the racers was to get a ton of camber in the RF so they could better plant the RF tire in the corners.

I've seen rotors come apart but never a cut/sectioned A-Arm.