Leaderboard

I have been trying to get all the suspension adjustments dialed in for the past couple of weeks. Kind of frustrating in front, as I'm sure you all know. Making one change affects everything else. Once I made all the changes necessary to get 6 degrees of caster, I found that all the angles changed sufficiently that it appeared to change the relative angles between the LCAs and the tie rods. So I had to quit dicking around and finally actually measure bump-steer. I found that my eye-balling of the relative angles of the LCAs and tie rods had been pretty close. To achieve "zero" (or close to it) bump steer required 1.83" of spacers between the bottom of the knuckle and the Heim joint. More than I would have preferred, but it is what it is. So, when accounting for the thickness of the Heim joint, steering knuckle, a couple of washers, and lock nut, I ordered 4.77" UHL AN10 (5/8") bolts. McMaster-Carr had an assortment of 5/8" ID/1" OD stainless steel spacers. I will probably do as tube80z suggested and weld a long one to the knuckle, then just fine tune with smaller spacers to get the 1.83" needed. I had looked at the Arizona Z car knuckle with integral bump steer spacer, and at first thought it would be an ideal solution. But, I too was bothered by it being aluminum, and it comes with the OEM style tapered holes when I needed straight 5/8" holes. I spent the money on the AN bolts just because they are critical parts, and the AN bolts are fairly high strength while being designed to not be too brittle. So if they are overstressed some bending should be visible before they fail. Probably overkill, as I cannot imagine even in the long-spaced single-shear application I have conjured that a 5/8" bolt is going to bend/break steering a Datsun around. Thanks for all the input.