I've got a 38 Buick Special Coupe and have been contemplating ways of addressing the front suspension. Initially I was looking at possibly replacing the front upper and lower control arms with modern tubular versions but looking at these control arms I see they are forged and quite solid. I would love to see if there's a way to convert these to accept ball joints and modern spindles. Has anybody ever done anything like this?
There are a couple of options for this site- If you can find them, a set of 58 Pontiac lowers and 58 Olds or Pontiac uppers will convert it to ball joints. Just have to make an angle iron bracket to bolt the uppers on. 58-64 Impala spindles completes this and CPP makes them in dropped. Down Right Fab makes dropped spindles that replace the uprights, but they are pricey ($1000/set). Bought two sets for my cars.
Which series of 58 Pontiac would have the uppers and lowers you mentioned? I talked to downright Fab and yes $1,000 is the price they mentioned they also said I was going to have to bend my steering arms to work with the dropped uprights. I'd like to avoid that if possible
All of the 58 Pontiac big cars used the same suspension. Crankshaft Coalition had an article that covered this. I have not been able to find it lately though. The Oldsmobile uppers have the anti-dive twist built into them where the Pontiac ones don't. The only drawback to the Olds ones is the ball joints are harder to find. The lowers are an even harder find, although if you find a set they are a bolt-in by putting the inner lower bolting into the outer crossmember hole and drilling a new outer hole. That moves the lower out 2" to keep the geometry correct. That whole set-up allows for more positive caster. I could never find a set of lowers (do have the Olds uppers) so I went the Down Right Fab route. I wanted to keep the original frame intact. Yes, the drop spindles (2" drop) require bending the steering arms down 2" to keep the steering angles correct.
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