shnee

My upper ball joint was busted so I replaced the whole control arm with a Dorman one. I got a great deal locally on a set of them, so I went that route instead of getting just a new ball joint.
When I went to switch over my camber kit, I ran into a problem. I just decided to go without the kit right now. I could have gotten an adjustable ball joint, but I didn't, so that's that. Not really trying to spend that kind of money on them when they will probably go at some point in the future, and I already own a camber kit.

Anyway, here's what's going on with the camber kit and the new arm.

Here is the camber kit on the OEM control arm extended forward.


Here it the camber kit on the OEM control arm extended backward.


Here is the camber kit on the new control arm extended forward. It is basically the same as on the OEM one.


Now, here is as far as the camber kit will extend backward on the new arm. Notice how limited a range it has.


If I installed this, this is the widest angle the control arm could possible be. Now I don't know much about control arms, but I'm pretty sure this is ridiculously limited. Am I wrong?


What's happening is the open "U" at the ends of the arms are not as deep/wide as the OEM one, so the camber kit is hitting the metal of the arm much sooner than on the OEM arm.
I'm wondering if it is a bad idea to grind that "U" down to allow the camber kit to pass through.
My camber is obviously bad right now, so I'm considering it.
At the same time, I don't want to mess with the integrity of the arm, so I'm leaning toward not doing it. I'd rather run some camber than have my control arm snap off.
Thoughts on this?

dorman68

shnee,

Sorry to hear about your control arm issue. I work for Dorman Products. I would like to help you out with your issue. Feel free to contact me at gkovacs@dormanproducts.com

Thanks,

Gabe

shnee

A note to any future persons searching this topic and finding this thread:
The Dorman control arm will not work with the Ingalls camber kit, and it is probably the same with other kits that replace the control arm anchor bolts (not just Ingalls). I'm going to assume it is the same way with other non-OE replacement control arms as well (not just Dorman), because I have looked at pictures of other brands, and they look identical in the problem area.

The groove where the anchor bolts pass through, as seen in the above pictures, is too shallow for the camber kit to pass through. This may not be an issue if you are running the full degree of correction, but I would in no way bet on that. If I had to guess, I would say it would likely not make a difference, because the groove is so shallow. I think the full correction is like +3 degrees (though you can buy various correction ranges), so you will have to be pretty slammed to need that much correction anyway. As for me, I have a 3.0 dropped on Neuspeed Sports with KYB AGX shocks, and I certainly could not use that much correction, so there was no use in me trying it out.

Gabe from Dorman, who posted above, was helpful in trying to resolve this. We exchanged many emails between the time he found this thread and the time I am posting this. Unfortunately, though as expected, there is no good solution to this problem. I would not feel safe grinding the arm out to allow the kit to pass through, and Gabe has echoed this concern.

When I get a chance, I am going to just remove the camber kit from the other side, so at least I'm running similar negative camber on both sides. Eventually I will just buy the OEM arm and cut my losses.

I hope this helps someone!