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Fitting wide radius arms to narrow axle?


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I have a Salisbury front axle on my defender which has the 46mm wide radius arms.

I bought a set of castor corrected ones, had them galvanised, powder coated and now found out they are the 52 mm variety. :ph34r:

So together with the 52 mm bushes they won't fit. But together with the 46 mm bushes they do fit, but clearance between the arm and axle is really tight.

Will this be a problem? Any experience?

Cheers Bowy who's slapping himself in the face that he bought the wrong arms and even invested an extra 100,- in galvanizing/powder coating :blink:

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I would think the arms would bind on the axle brackets when the axle articulates. However, the arms are a big heavy casting and the brackets are a couple of mm thick so they will probably just bend. However, repeated application may lead to cracking. The witness marks may not go down to well with your equivalent of the MOT tester either...

With your fabrication skills could you not just cut off one side of each bracket and stick it back on again a few mm further out? Would be the right thing to do IMHO. You may even be able to buy replacement brackets off the shelf. I know you can get rear axle shock mounts and spring perches.

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Thx for the input, Already what I was thinking :(

Welding on a different set of brackets is an option, but quite a lot of work when the axle is under te car. So probably will try to sell these and try to find a different set and take my losses.

Cheers Bowy

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Take the axle off! doesn't take long - cable tie calipers up out the way, remove shocks and springs, undo drag link and panhard and take the nuts off the ends of the radius arms. (Although I know you know all this already!)

Working on the bench it will be easy and you will save your hard earned for a little bit of work. Makes sense to me.

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