I might move the pivot inboard toward the spindle along the same axis for a little more clearance if I make some extras. My daughter's Fiero might become a test car for the street.
Updating this thread because I am installing better bushings on the lower control arms. So I have the bracket I built off and i realized I have never posted pictures of the bracket by itself. It weighs 1 lb 2.5 ounces and cross dimensions are 5" each way. Not very big at all. It works great and solves the bumpsteer problem completely.I have put a lot of miles on it and had it at a track day with no problems. While I have it off I am going to smooth it out and paint it.
This chassis nut was ground smooth and welded in to a DOM tube.
A 1/2" grade 8 nut was welded to a 1/8" 1" by 1" piece of steel and welded in to an angled 1" by 1" piece of 1/8" square tube:
I actually had some spare time today so I made these:
I didn't have any round tubing so used 1x1 for both pieces. I welded the 1/2" nut in the upper end directly to the square tubing, seems to work well and less pieces to make. I'll add a tab to brace it to the extra metal on the spindle like you did. I haven't opened up the end for the heim yet, I'll do that once I get them in-hand. In the meantime, here are a few pictures of them attached to the spindle:
I also used a long metric pinch-bolt that goes through the lower tube and has a nut on the end for now.
I did some playing with my suspension geometry software to see how critical the various locations are. Surprisingly, the only one that was fussy was the vertical location of the inner link pivot. Since I have anti-squat, using a link directly to the rear bushing bolt would result in some bumpsteer. I'll be making a bracket for the inner heim that will bolt to the inner surface of the cradle, with a vertical slot so I can adjust it up or down to get zero toe. I might even play at the track to see if the car likes bumpsteer or not.
[This message has been edited by mender (edited 12-16-2017).]
That looks great. Nice to see somebody else doing stuff like this. I have been reading up about anti squat and I am going to add some at my upper control arm mounts. I may have to use Febest bushings in my lower controls arms as my del-a-lums are about a 1/4" too wide. Hoping I can open the mounts up a bit to get them to fit because it will be less work than making stuff from scratch.
The rod ends I used are just some cheap ones I got from Speedway. One thing I noticed was only the end that bolts directly to the chassis showed any signs of wear. The rod end that goes in to the bracket does not seem to move very much and is still like new. I have some really good ends to put on the chassis side when I get it all back together.
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 12-16-2017).]
I used 5/8 thread with 1/2" holes in the ends. Got them with the 9" swedge tubes from Speedway. They were cheap units, I have better ones to put on but I can't find the invoice for them. I get a lot of my stuff from Grisdales in Dundas Ont because I can drive down and they have a ton of stuff in stock.
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 12-17-2017).]
I dont think you can go wrong with QA1 stuff. I have their coilovers and have been very happy with them. They seem pretty indestructable. The last time I bought some rod ends I went through the QA1 catalogue and picked out what I thought would work and went down to Grisdales and they sold me some from Radial Bearing that they said were better (and they did not have the QA1 that I wanted in stock) These were 48.00 each 5/8 studs and 5/8" opening in the end.
I made this arm up but it did not work out. I am going to use these rod ends for the bumpsteer bracket control rods. I have the right size spacers to adapt the 5/8 opening down to 1/2" and 12 mm for mounting. We will see how long these ones last.
This is the control rod that was on the passenger side for about 2 summers:
The side that is crossways is the worn end from the frame side. The other end is still like new so I am not going to put one of my good ends there. With the lack of wear I probably will never have to replace the knuckle ends. The centre of the rod ends are 13" give or take the way they are set in the picture.
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 12-19-2017).]
The only thing I can think that caused the lack of wear on the bracket end is that maybe it does not move as much. Before I take apart the driver side I am going to jack it up and down and figure it out. Just wanted to add that the wear is not that bad, just that the knuckle end is like new tight while the frame end moves easily .No noticeable slop in it though.
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 12-26-2017).]
I have installed the del-A-lum bushings in the passenger side lower control arm. I had to narrow them 1/4" to get them to fit in the cradle. This is the jig I made up:
While I was at it, I cut off the old control rod mount and gave it a coat of paint:
Weight of this arm as shown is 6.2 lbs so a stock arm is lighter.
Put on a better rod end with high deflection washers on the control rod cradle side. These are 5/8 rod end hole so I made a spacer out of 5/8 OD stainless tubing that happened to have an ID of 12 mm same as the chassis bolt.
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 12-29-2017).]
I used a set of Heidts mustang II upper control arms. I had to shorten them about an inch to make my setup work. I have since found the same arms from other makers are quite a bit cheaper.
Finally got around to modding a couple of spindles and installing them so I could finish up. I received the QA1 rod ends and links this week so was anxious to put them in.
I decided to do the inner mount the same as yours, on a 5" long control arm bolt. I was going to do an adjustable inner mount but I'm going to make the outer one adjustable instead by slotting it for setting up the bumpsteer. Once I have it where I like it I'll weld washers on either side to close up the slots and lock in the location then make a few spares. I also went back to the factory pinch bolt once everything was aligned by welding in a flange nut when the tubing butts against the spindle by the ball joint.
With all the solid ends in my rear suspension (no rubber) I'm quite pleased with how little movement there is.
I'll post the bumpsteer results when I get the car off the hoist.
[This message has been edited by mender (edited 03-03-2018).]
I sold this car the other day. Not getting the paint job done in a reasonable amount of time kind of did me in. And after owning and playing with the car for 22 years I want to work on a different car for a change. My 91 civic wagon needs an AC compressor and that will be this winter's project. I have probably spent 20K on this Fiero over the time I have owned it including the original purchase price but that is only about 910.00 per year. As far as a hobby goes, I spend more than that on a season of golfing. Good luck to the new owner, hopefully he gets as much enjoyment out of it as I did.
It looks like the buyer only posted once, so we probably won't be getting any further updates...
It's sort of sad, looking around here these days and seeing all the people from the "Good Old Days" who are MIA, banned, or who have sold off their cars and left. I remember when you'd log in and almost every forum would have 2 or 3 pages of new posts in a single day.
