Might be replacing my rear lower control arms. Currently have a roughed up set of boxed arms with rubber bushings. Summer, weekend driver only. Caught the attached on E-Bay with billet aluminum bushings...no rubber or poly? Seems like a great price.

Lower Control Arms (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7946735218&category=33583)

yuck! you dont want those if you drive on the street. you will shock and stress you suspension, frame and body.

...thanks 454...I did a bit more research and yes, I might as well weld in rigid bar stock in lieu of these!

...................I run solid bushings on my daily driver, properly set-up it will ride fine with no undue stress to anything.

those look like my SSM bars that I bought a few years ago. mine worked just fine for daily driving

I don't think this would affect your ride so much if you have decent shocks and springs. The Guru just informed me that these things will bind like crazy, because they have no side-to-side "give", sorta like a rod end would give you, or like the flex that the stock rubber gives you. Didn't think of that, sorry. I bet they would work wekk if you were going in a straight line all the time. :D

My bad, should have made my post clear. I run solid bushings in the front, where they only required to pivot. In a rear application the arms needs to both pivot and rotate (or articulate, roll, or whatever adjective you want to give it) at the same time. This REQUIRES a ball and socket arrangement to work properly.

Rubber bushings work only because of their inherent compliance. This is the reason poly doesn't work and running solid steel bushings in the rear would borderline on sin. You could get away with it in the upper ears of the housing only, at least 3 of the ends need to be able to move.

I will forever stand by my recommendation (and that of many who understand converging 4-link kinematics) that the best alternative to a re-design of the system is adjustable uppers with spherical bearings such as Edlebrock or Currie and any number of manufactures who offer spherical bearing lowers.

Denny...and others. Again , it's a weekend driver....not even daily...not looking for radical kinds of performance, but a solid ride....but also not mess up anything. I am in the process of rebuilding the front end steering/suspension with the typical rebuild kit...PST, stuck with rubber And the rear uppers and lowers with rubber. My lower boxed arms are a bit "scraggly" so I figured I might be able to simply replace them with the lowers I note.

Should I still stay away from them?

Stick with OE arms and bushings. You would be suprised how much better it will feel just freshening everything up.

For a weekend driver (cruiser) or for anybody in general, stay away from those arms. This was the 1st I had seen of them and I hope it's the last.

....enough said...thanks!!!

I run solid aluminum in the uppers at the rear(housing end) of mine with rubber on the front of the uppers. So far it rides fine and no wheel hop or binding issues.

6 years and 34,800 miles. no binding, no problems. The last year with twin turbos and sticky tires, seem to work fine.