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Hi guys,

I'm new here, was planning to do a "newbie" post with pictures of my 86 951,
but a new problem just came up and i need some help.

My mechanic tells me that the joints on my A-arms that hold in my ball joints are weak and as a result there is some movement in them. He says to change the arms. Pretty certain the ball joints are not be be blamed, i have a new Super Deluxe kit from rennbay, so i am sure its not them.

Been looking around on the web and it seems that most of the billet a-arms are about 1500 for a pair. Are there no cheaper alternatives? What do you guys use? Do these make a big difference from the stock ones?

Anybody know how much the Powerhouse ones cost?

Any help will be great!

Cheers.

Antonio

If you're sure that the ball joints are good the only other reason to change them is a crack on the metal. Is that the case? If I were you I would try to see what exactly your mechanic is talking about. In you need to change them you are in luck. The 86 951 can be fitted with the earlier 944 steel arms with the replacable ball joints. I had this setup (re-enforced) on my track car for three years with no issues.

z3bra

I think your mechanic is either mistaken, misinformed, or smoking crack. When it comes to aluminum castings it's pretty much an all or nothing sort of thing. They'd be much more likely to crack than bend or be "weak." Maybe he means the inner pivot bushings or the caster blocks but I just don't see a casting doing what he says.

Not sure what the Powerhaus ones are going for, but generally speaking if it comes from Powerhaus it's as expensive if not more expensive than most other vendors.

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This is a picture of the a-arm.
How does it look?
It seems that the ball pin, rubbed away a part of the joint casting.
Does this look right to you guys?
Cheers.

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one more.. hopefully this is a better picture.

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Can't really see it, but there is a shallow depression in the walls of the casting now. Is this normal?

tifosiman

I don't think "weak" is the right word, more like "damaged". There is damage there to the lip affecting the "roundness" and tolerance where the upper bushing seats. Put in another rebuild kit and it is certain to fail again due to that. Is the car lowered? What sort of spring rate? It looks like the pin has smacked the outside of the socket.

I would replace that arm, and the other if it looks like that as well. The cheapest alternative is get another set of good used 85.5/86 arms and rebuild them prior to install. However,if the car is lowered and is not running a highish spring rate (I have oversimplified the explanation, it is a little more in-depth than that really, but for the pruposes of this discussion it works), you may experience the same problem again in the future.

Marcus Blazack (sp?) makes a set of boxed steel a-arms that are less expensive than the Charley Arms and use a 17mm pin. They are less prone to issues with lowered cars and have easily replaceable BJ's. Charley Arms are nice and use a 19mm pin, so you will need to machine the spindle out to accomodate. The way the Charley Arms are made, there is also less chance of this happening as well. I have never seen the Powerhaus arms in person so I don't have any experience with them.

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Hey there tifosman, z3bra & antonio,

Thanks for all the replies. Evey bit of info learned is much appreciated.
Yes, both arms are in similar condition, and yes my car has been lowered.
But by how much and what springs are used, i can't tell as it was the done way before i bought the car.

I'll attach a picture of my car and another of the ball joint casting. I don't think it has been lowered by very much.

What do u guys think?

Cheers.

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Wider shot of the a-arm.

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From a different angle.

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Last shot.

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I also looked in ebay and saw one guy selling rebuilt arms for about 150 each.
Looks like a cheap way out. Anybody here have gone down this road?
Or can somebody help with Marcus Blazack?
Thanks in advance.

tifosiman

Yes, I would replace those if I were you. Your car does not look excessively low at all, it appears to be at about stock height from what I can tell.

The rebuilt arms for $150 do not sound like too bad of a deal, if the rebuild was done correctly. Be certain that you are getting 86 offset a-arms (your car appears to be an 86 from the presence of the Fuchs on the car).

Here is a link for the arms from Marcus:

http://www.blaszakprecision.com/Control_Arms.html

testarossa_td

No help on the joints but nice car.

Click avatar for desktop size.

ninefiveone

Markus has several options that I would look into:

- Steel reinforced arms (I'm currently using these on a frequently tracked car)
- Steel reinforced modified to use 968 castor blocks
- Tubular Steel track arms

All of them use replaceable ball joints.