Need weldor (not welder) near MA

Weldor being a person who welds things.

I'm looking for a solution for lowering the ball joints on my Challenge project. There are bolt-on extenders, but they cost 13% of the budget. One alternative is to cut the BJ mount off of a pair of spindles and weld them to the bottom of another pair. I'm told this has been done, and in theory would be cheaper than welding on a solid chunk of metal and machining it to fit the tapered BJ post and retaining bolt.

I can't weld worth a damn and wouldn't dream of attempting this job. If you can, or know someone who can, drop me a line.

And as a BTW, I actually do need a welder. 110v MIG. Will pay top dollar for a very cheap unit.

Are your spindles cast iron? If so I would be real picky about who you let do it.

Personally I would never attempt it, but hey, I don't live as dangerously as I like to think I do.

In reply to Marty!:

They're cast something, presumably iron. This is actually supposed to be the safer way of doing this as opposed to bolt-on extenders. I will be looking for someone with professional skills, if not professional prices.

I can't keep up, got pictures?

why not just find longer ball joints? Load of racing supply places sell extended stud versions. Stock spindles are cast steel, cast irons not impact freindly.

Here is a shot of the lower control arm. This is a MacPherson type suspension.

Lowering the car makes the inner mount lower than the ball joint. This sends the roll center through the floor (sometimes literally) which essentially increases roll.

Here is a crummy shot of where the ball joint attaches to the spindle.

The objective is to increase the distance between the axle and the ball joint. That ultimately raises the roll center back up and decreases body roll. Indiscriminate lowering can actually increase roll because it lowers the RC faster than it lowers the CG.

44Dwarf wrote: why not just find longer ball joints? Load of racing supply places sell extended stud versions. Stock spindles are cast steel, cast irons not impact freindly.

Can you point me to something? The spindles take a tapered stud with a sort of undercut where a cross bolt secures it. The stock BJ is a non-greaseable pressed-together sort of thing with a flange that bolts to the control arm.

There are some people out there who have welded cast steel with good results, and there are others whose work I wouldn't trust. I believe the key is in preheating the metal.

That looks like a lower control arm from a mk2 VW. How'd I do?

Another option (I don't remember what the lower control arm of my old mk2s looked like, would be to fab up a new control arm and move the mounting points on the chassis side.

EDIT: I just checked your profile, MK1. I was close.

Find something with the same balljoint taper but a taller joint.

Then adapt the easier-to-deal-with end of the joint to fit your control arm.

My Trans-Am has Chevy truck upper balljoints which are taller than stock and help to change the camber curve of the front end. The holes in the UCA needed to be enlarged to do this mod.

Shawn

Brotus7 wrote: Another option (I don't remember what the lower control arm of my old mk2s looked like, would be to fab up a new control arm and move the mounting points on the chassis side.

I thought about it, but it would be pretty hard to do on a Rabbit. The rear CA mount attaches to the bottom of the floor pan.

I will look at other ways of doing this, but I think the SCCA Prod class guys have probably exhausted all the options or they wouldn't be spending the money on extenders and welded spindles. I did see a write up by someone who adapted an A3 ball joint to use a taller aftermarket joint made for 924s, but it wound up costing more and being work than the extenders.

Don't move the inner mount you'll mess up the bump steer worse then moving the outer. So you have a tapper with 1/2 round bit out of it? If they make the adapter just buy it its easyer and likley more safe due to the split in the mount and needing to flex to help hold the joint tight. Weldors would not want to take the risk of it cracking.

Jarod at SCCH has made them and also Franz (but I don't know where he is at the moment).