Installing Magnum Force Upper Control Arms - Up In Arms

The inner control-arm pivots are attached with special adjustment cam bolts accessible through service plates in the inner fenders. It may take some wiggling to get them out.

The control arm may require some persuasion with a prybar to work it out.

The sway bar links need to be disconnected so the suspension can travel freely.

With such a broad range of adjustment possible, it can be tricky to pick a baseline adjustment for the installation. With the rod-end-style arms, there are two points of adjustment possible: at the stock camber-adjustment cams, and at the rod-end. The idea is to set the rod-ends so the cams are near the center of their travel with the suspension at ride height and the spindle near the desired camber setting. Once installed, the A-arm must be disconnected from the frame mount to make any further adjustment at the rod-ends, so final fine-tuning of the alignment must be accomplished through the stock adjusting cams. We found that a baseline setting of three turns out of the rod-end (from its fully seated position) put us in the ballpark. A short exposure of threads is preferred to minimize the length of rod exposed to bending loads.

Even though it takes a little finesse to line up the small spacers, the Magnum Force arms slip right into place, and the ball-joint end is bolted to the spindle.

Set the factory adjustment cams to center. This is easily gauged by eyeballing the amount of the mounting slot visible past either side of the aluminum spacers. This setting will give the most adjustability for later alignment.

Jack up the suspension by the lower control arm to the ride height noted earlier by the distance between the lower control arms and lower bumpstop. With the steering pointed straight ahead, using an angle finder or level, determine the angle of the brake disc in comparison to a vertical angle. You should be between 0 and -2 degrees. If it's way off, the control arm will need to come off the inner mounts, and the rod-ends adjusted in or out as required. Try to keep the adjuster cams in the center of their range when roughly setting camber. This will allow the most adjustability for setting the caster and camber without having to remove the A-arms later.

On our application, a small flap of sheetmetal jutted up from the frame and interfered with the control arm at the bottom of travel. This can be cut off or bent down out of the way.

The factory bumpstop location ends up nowhere near the new control arm.

Our solution was to fabricate these extension brackets from 1⁄8-inch steel to move the bumpstop under the arm. Note the elongated square hole for mounting the bumpstop, which allows fine-tuning its final position.

We designed our bracket to attach at the factory bumpstop hole so we could return to the stock configuration later. The lower end can be bolted in by adding a drilled flange to the bottom and drilling a hole in the stock bracket. Or, it can simply be welded in.

Install the grease zerk and lube the ball joint with quality chassis grease, and the control-arm conversion is done.

The tubular control arm looks trick and lends a light, uncluttered look to the front suspension.