Rod End Front Wishbones.

[EricB]

Doing a ground up restoration on my '66 S3 SE DHC. My fabricator has set up both the upper and lower front wishbones to use rod ends (ie Heim or Rose joints). I am wondering if that would be too harsh. The car will be used for auto slaloms plus a little bit of ordinary road use. Plan to use soft suspension settings and rely on sway bars front and rear for handling . The heim joints will give me camber adjustment easily. Plan to do that with the lower ones.

I was thinking about using a type of rod end with a rubber liner for the top wishbones if the feedback suggests that would be required.

Any comments on experiences?

[snowyelan]

No Idea on how much harshness it will add, but it likely has lengthened the lower arm distance between pivots. If so it increases camber change thru suspension travel, changes bump steer, etc...

[bitsobrits]

I've been running rod end wishbones (upper only) on the street for the last 25 years or so. No issues with harshness to me. And I'm still on the original ends, no discernible wear. Also, converted the car to TTR rod end rear wishbones about 10 years go. Again, no harshness issues. You do need to keep them clean, and there are dust seals available, but I just give them an annual wipe down with a bit of ACR50.

BTW, there really is no need for adjustable lower wishbones as you can get pretty much any sane amount of negative camber with just the adjustable uppers. Adding rod end attachment to a trunnion joint seems sort of silly to me, but doesn't really hurt anything.

[EricB]

I agree about only the top or bottom needing the rod ends for camber adjustment but my fabricator went ahead and did both. I guess easier than trying to get the old bushings out of the other pairs to replace with poly ones.

Anyways, glad to hear that harshness should not be a problem.

[andyelan]

Hi Eric

I'm surprised your fabricator modified the wishbones apparently without discussing this with you first. Now the jobs been done, it seems a bit late to be worrying about harshness.

[EricB]

There was a bit of misundertanding so that is why I asked re harshness. Now I have the choice of using either the bottom or top arms for the camber adjustment.

I was thinking about using a type of rod end that is rubber lined on probably the upper arms but no need if the general feeling is that using rod ends for all the arms will be OK. Thanks for the comments.