Upper control arms & Rough Alignment Mk4

[NA5KAR]

Thanks in advance for your help. I have a complete kit and just started my build. My upper control arms arrived with the pivot bars upside down. I reversed them so that the grease fittings are facing up. Question number 1 ... can someone look at my attached pics and verify that I got the upper control arms installed correctly? Question 2 ... in the complete kit manual, there is a page for Rough Alignment. The drawing shows the passenger side arm. It mentions the drivers side arm but does not say how the alignment should be set up on that one. The challenge for me is that if I take the drivers side arm and just rotate it 180 degrees from the passenger side (where the clevis bolt on the ball joint plate is toward the front of the car), the clevis bolt on the (drivers side) ball joint plate is toward the back of the car. For the Drivers side, this does not allow me to measure the 6.875" distance from the pivot bolt to the clevis bolt on the front side. Sorry if this is confusing. I did a photoshop drawing of what I am talking about. It is attached. My guess is that for the drivers side, I can only measure the distances from the pivot bolts to the grease fitting. Thanks again. Dan

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[Brad Smith]

Having seen a LOT of suspensions (30 yr. auto tech), I find this diagram to be extremely puzzling, so don't feel bad.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=91616&d=1534657553&thumb=1

As a general rule, right and left suspension components are typically a mirror image of each other. This diagram looks like a circle track setup. All other things equal, this car will pull left.

[Gromit]

Ignore the welded clevis, its going to be on the front on one side and back on the other, it has no bearing on the final alignment. What would be more important here is that the back links be the same length. in your example pdf 7.375 and the front side should be the longer dimension. this will tilt the top of the spindle to the rear of the car the same on both sides and create positive caster, how much caster you need will depend on Power steering or not and desired self centering steering effort.

HTH
Chris aka Gromit

[edwardb]

Having seen a LOT of suspensions (30 yr. auto tech), I find this diagram to be extremely puzzling, so don't feel bad.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=91616&d=1534657553&thumb=1

As a general rule, right and left suspension components are typically a mirror image of each other. This diagram looks like a circle track setup. All other things equal, this car will pull left.

Those diagrams and pictures were prepared by the forum member. Not Factory Five documentation if that's what you're thinking. You're right. Set up that way wouldn't work well. As Gromit said, the welded clevis will be in the front on one side, and the back on the other. But it doesn't matter. Works just fine. What does matter is the front and rear adjusters are the same on both sides. A good starting point is with the front adjusters showing about 1/2-inch of threads, the back adjusters nearly all the way in, and tow just slightly in to the front. That will of course be adjusted as needed during the actual alignment.