Lower Ctrl Arm Bolt Repair

[Timo]

Had the misfortune of losing the nuts that hold the left lower control arm onto the cross member during a race event at Watkins Glen. Now know that in order to get a suitable amount of negative camber I'll need to put in longer bolts for these. Looks like these are welded in and the best way to do this is to remove the cross member and weld new, longer ones in.
Anyone have experience with this and/or have any advice on the best way to do this repair?

[ace124]

Timo you have a few options. What ive done in the past is knock out the original crossmember bolts with stripped or damaged thread and replaced them with similar FIAT 8.8 grade bolts. You will find the doughnut bolts, or gearbox bolts are the same length and grade. You will need to tack them on the inside so they wont spin when you do up the nut. In order to get increased negative camber ive found it easier to elongate the upper wishbone balljoint locating holes inwards ( towards the car). I then make a template of thin metal in the shape of the balljoint spacing and weld this onto the wishbone in the inner position. This way you dont need to run excessively long bolts on the crossmember which means you will not need to go to a higher grade bolt such as a 10.9 as you pack an excess of shims under there. You will find a 3-5mm elongation, and subsequent inwards movement of the top balljoint enough to give you 2.5+ degrees Negative camber when the bottom is shimmed up about 12mm. This obviously depends on your chassis as you would know that no 2 fiats are alike given their age and chassis sag issues. On an old coupe i had one side had 3mm worth of shims the other 12mm in order to equalise camber, and the chassis rails looked straight so keep this in mind. You can cut a small window out of the cross member to remove and tack weld the fore bolt then weld it closed again.

Good luck

[Timo]

Thanks, Ace.
/Tim