If you own a Buick Regal, Chevy Monte Carlo, Oldsmobile Cutlass, Pontiac Grand Prix, Chevy Blazer or Chevy S-10 and you want to turn your vehicle into a hopper, you'll most likely have to extend your upper A-arms. One way of achieving this is by swapping out your stock upper A-arms with a larger pair from an '80s-vintage Chevrolet Caprice.
When building a hopper there are always a bunch of factors that can go wrong with your car: batteries run low, solenoids get stuck, motors burn up; the possibilities are endless. Most pro builders are always trying to prevent anything from going wrong and avoid breaking hoses, fittings and ball joints. No car is perfect, but preventive maintenance will keep you on the road longer, and one of the most important (and common) fix is an A-arm swap.
There are two primary benefits to swapping out your A-arms: you receive a 1-inch extension and you get a better offset on the ball joints (preventing them from overextending out of the socket). The swapping of A-arms won't keep the ball joints from breaking, but it does help relieve stress. When you swap out your arms make sure that you use new bushings (you should also replace your old ball joints with a new set). We recommend the Moog ball joint, which is one of the better ball joints on the market. Now let us show you how the pros at Edmund's Hydraulics in Bakersfield, California, handle an upper A-arm swap.
Can you notice the difference on the stock Regal upper A-arm on the lft and the larger Caprice A-arm on the right? |
Edmund started by removing the locking nuts on the A-arm cross shaft. |
Next on the agenda was to remove the bushings on the A-arms. Edmund used a bushing remover to remove the stock bushing. |
Both side bushings were removed, allowing the cross shaft to be changed out. |
The A-arm was wire brushed to the bare metal, allowing the metal to be marked for the next step. |
The upper A-arm was marked using a liquid marker to see where it's going to be cut. |
To ensure that there's no slag, a plasma cutter was used to make a clean cut in the A-arm. |
Here's the important trick to the tech: you now need to use the stock Regal cross shaft instead of the Caprice shaft. Having the A-arm notched out as you see will allow the A-arm to be closed as the cross shaft pulls the arms closer. You also need to tighten the shaft from both sides going back and forth. |
You can see how much the arm will close once the Regal cross shaft is tightened. |
A piece of flat 1/4-inch metal plate was cut out and cleaned up to be welded to the A-arm. |
When welding the plate make sure that you do not weld a complete section at one time as you can warp the arms. Allow them to cool off as necessary. |
You can see the 1-inch difference on the arms as the one on the left is ready to be bolted onto the car. |
Notice also that the inside of the arm was welded to ensure that the weld on the plate would not crack. |
This Regal was ready for the streets with its new pair of extended A-arms. |