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End
Link Bracket
Making the brackets was
fairly easy.........finding the metal I needed was a
little harder. But more on that later.
I knew I wanted to span
two of the bolts that secure the lower control arm to
the spring pan but the spring pan has a lip on it that
would need a spacer to fill the gap.
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The spring pan
bottom that needed a filler |
The smaller piece
filled the space with 2
washers taking up the remaining gap |
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The pieces
stacked together with room for
the End Link washers. |
Mounted on the
spring pan |
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The steel for the filler
was easy to find as most hardware stores carry a variety
of metal bars. In this case I used 3/16" thick x 2"
wide. But I needed a 3" wide piece to accommodate the
1-1/2" washers on the End Links and I couldn't find that
anywhere. What made it even more frustrating was that I
only needed two 5" pieces or one 10" piece. I stopped at
welding shop and they mentioned that Logan Steel has a
Bargain Tent. I've been driving by Logan Steel for
probably 30 years but this was my first visit. I told
the guy what I was looking for and he said I had two
options: pull a new piece and it would cost about $30 or
go to the Bargain Tent and find it for $2.00 per pound.
I opted for the tent. Much to my surprise it was about
the size of a 6 car garage and everything was organized
by size and type. Right inside the door I found two 1/4"
x 3" x 6" pieces. Total cost was $2.00! A lot cheaper
then the $13.00 I paid at Home Depot for the 3' piece
used for the filler.
Back home I made a paper
template of the bottom side of the spring pan which I
kept to straight lines for ease of cutting. I cut the
spacers with a cutting wheel on my angle grinder and
then "fine tuned" the fit with a grinding wheel. The
bracket itself was simply the two straight cuts on each
corner that you can see. You can also see that the hole
for the End Link is positioned off center as that's
where it hit the bracket when I test fitted to determine
the hole location. A lucky location, as it gave me two
different mounting options.
End Link Mounting Page
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