I'm thinking about making a set of lower control arms for my 67 skylark. I have a 12 bolt in there, not sure about posi or open yet, and want to put a rear sway bar on so I need boxed arms. I have seen some solid aluminum bars for sale on Ebay and, since I have a machine shop and own a CNC mill, making a custom set and maybe even engraving my name on them would be easy. The problem comes in putting the rear sway bar attaching holes in. Since I don't have boxed arms, I assume the holes are not there so I can't copy. Is there anywhere I can get the hole to hole dimensions for both bushings and the sway bar holes? Or do I need to just find an old set of arms and copy them? I would sure rather make the new ones, get them all assembled with bushings and anodized or powder coated before I take the old ones off. That way I can do one at a time and in a day, bang, new control arms. Anybody have a rough drawing of these, or am I on my own? Thanks Jon
If your car has an original set of lower control arms they have the holes in them for a sway bar no matter if they are boxed or not, so you do have a pattern to use. That said, if you wanted to use a rear sway bar with the non boxed original lower control arms you would need to make them strong enough, by boxing them as the factory did (they make an aftermarket insert to weld in/on them to accomplish this). Or you could use pieces of steel pipe and some flat steel to box them. Something of your own design to make them suitable for a sway bar.
You can buy a pair of boxed, Made in USA lower control arms for a little more than a $100. I can't imagine that it could be much cheaper to make them yourself by the time you factor in the cost of materials and tooling setup.
On my first 66 i went with addco sway bars because there were few options at the time. All holes were there for the swaybar and they included extra bolts and spacers to install in the other holes to stiffen the arm. Much better than stock. This go around I am fortunate to have choices and went with spohn performance for arms and sway bar!!!! Much better stuff!!! If you haven't purchased yet I strongly suggest you checking them out. Much better than the "hot...." alternative. IMO Scott
I'm thinking of boxing my lower arms also, I know it improves the stiffness, but is it that noticeable?
