Rear Suspension Mounting Hole Repair

[hawkfan]

Can anything be done to repair stretched control arm mounting holes?

 

[charlief1]

Upper, lower, frame, or axle?

 

[hawkfan]

Upper, lower, frame, or axle?

Lower drivers side at the frame so far so it's going to be tricky. I will check the rest closer this weekend. I was replacing the LCAs in my sig with some UMI poly/roto joint arms when I saw it. It's a street car and I've never raced it. I haven't even driven it hard except in a straight line for tuning purposes. I had poly bushings on the lowers and poly in the uppers with spherical joints in the axle housing ears to allow the uppers to articulate. I thought I was safe with that configuration on the street. The car does have 120k miles on it though so I'm unsure when the damage occurred.

 

[charlief1]

The only way it could happen is a loose bolt. Common issue with the dirt guys trying to get more movement out of the rear. The only way I could think of repairing it would be to either weld the hole up and then re-drill it or weld a washer over it as re-enforcement.

 

[hawkfan]

I'm going to give these a try before welding:

http://www.tmrcustoms.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=8_276&products_id=2245

They are designed for 1/4" thick metal so I will use the control arm bolt to pull/press it into the frame and then grind it flush with the mounting bracket if I need to. The hard part will be drilling the hole out.

 

[charlief1]

Hope it works. Drill from the inside of the frame so you can get through both holes.