Write-Up: Custom Rear Adjustment Links

done! uploading some pictures and stuff now

That looks great, except for all that rust.... sorry that you guys have to deal with all that salt

What's in the dude's mouth?

Some good reference shots..


old part, new part


empty RSSA mount point - there's a similar guide bracket on the back as well but it's flipped so the acrs are at the top with the bottom open. All I did with those areas was scrape off any raised rust to get cleaner contact surfaces. Actually the worse rusting is in the back where you can see it. It's actually got good paint mostly inside and in the back


That shot is kinda in front of the this area of the RSSA (from the pov of the car) so we're looking at where the hardware goes through to the othere side. As you can see, access there sucks and the access holes are situated inward from the center points of the mounts which means my hope to be able to get a socket or any kind of wrench will not work although I didn't try to do it with the back of the RSSA dropped.


So there's the new and the old. It's not your eyes - the bracket is actually supposed to be bowed at a slight angle since the original arms have to be stamped straight and there's a very slight angle going to the control arm. Also they did offset the point where the the original arm meets the mounting sleeve forward a tad also. It looks like the main reason for that is to give you some more clearance to the bolts holding up the back of the RSSA assembly. Since I didn't offset my hardware, It was a tiny bit trickier to get at those bolts with a socket (with new arms already installed) but certainly not impossible. If I make another set, that would be one revision i'll make.


The spacers worked great. That bracket will open/close quite a bit so there's a lot of forgiveness in overall size anyway.


new and old again
Maybe something to make note of - after examining how this design originally worked for adjustment and the damage on mine, it's apparent that, when adjusting rear toe, you can only turn that stud around so far and then you would have to go back the other way, it cannot just be turned all the way around. There's clear evidence that the tech that tried to align my car broke the end of the stud off because he tried to keep going one way and locked it up and broke it. Originally I thought it just rusted and broke because of that. Make sure you don't do, or let your tech make that mistake.


all done and ready for an alignment. also as for reaming the control arms for the studs, I wouldn't worry about it, just clean em with cleaner and a round wire brush and put the studs in. I roughly measured the new pivot point of the heim against the old one and without reaming, my new heim was actually sitting almost 1/4" lower (closer to the arm) then the pivot point of the original tie rod. If you want to even it up pretty much perfect, you can use one of those aluminum cone spacers on the bottom of the heim, like robo did. I only used one above the heim because the stud has enough clearance built in on that side. I felt this was more ideal. The only thing I grabbed from the hardware store last minute was a washer for the bottom nut that keeps the new adapter stud in the control arm. I actually had some trouble finding a good washer for it. IIRC The thread is 7/16 but I ended up using a 3/8 washer and it worked great.


looks pretty cool too

al_roethlisberger wrote:

That looks great, except for all that rust.... sorry that you guys have to deal with all that salt

yeah, that's 215k mi, much of it in Chicago
If I wasn't planning to probably replace the RSSA in the future, I might have done some refinishing but eh, it's not a show car - I'm not putting that kind of effort into just that.

another tidbit - I would recommend renting a ball joint fork set to get the old rod ends out of the control arms because I go nowhere trying to hammer them out from the bottom. I ended up using a 1" open end wrench as my pretend balljoint fork and using a floor jack to lever it up and that got them both out fine. Once those are separated from the control arms, it is possible to work the arms out of the RSSA without dropping the back of the RSSA. Basically, after you get the rear offset washer and nut off so the stud can be moved, push the stud in there just enough so it's clear of the back of the bracket and just push the arm forward and up a little and then you'll get the sleeve to come out of the RSSA bracket at and angle. Then you jimmy the stud & washer that'll likely be rust-welded to it out from the back. All this will be a lot easier if you at least loosen the two rear RSSA mounting bolts though. I ended up dropping one of my nuts in that cavity towards the front of the bracket so I let mine drop and rest on the exhaust to make it easier to reach in and get it and it was fine.

very very nice.

So, interested in offering a plug and play kit if there is interest?

Man....now that's nice.Now u gotta deal with alignment!
Hate rust.

..Ya know,come to think of it..you can eliminate the RBMs alltogether and bolt the RSSA directly to the body.There is enough slack in the links to allow that.

Beautiful work. Excited to hear about the results.

I would also be interested in getting in on purchasing a set if you decide you want to sell them!

so have you pushed it through a corner yet? Any discernable difference in ride?

Mr.Riviera wrote:

so have you pushed it through a corner yet? Any discernable difference in ride?

I hate to say it but if Turtle doesn't hard mount the RBMs a great part of the mod wont be realized. The RSSA is bolted to the RBM that in turn is bolted to the body by way of ultra soft rubber bushings.If the rubber bushings are left in the purpose of the mod is defeated to a point.Some performance will be had but nothing close to the max possible. jus sayin...

So Robo, if you were to take the RSSA off, you could pull the RBMs out and remount the RSSA directly to the body without having to do any welding or cutting or anything?

robotennis61 wrote:

Mr.Riviera wrote:

so have you pushed it through a corner yet? Any discernable difference in ride?

I hate to say it but if Turtle doesn't hard mount the RBMs a great part of the mod wont be realized. The RSSA is bolted to the RBM that in turn is bolted to the body by way of ultra soft rubber bushings.If the rubber bushings are left in the purpose of the mod is defeated to a point.Some performance will be had but nothing close to the max possible. jus sayin...

MMMMM. MY. NAME. IS. MMMMMMM. ROBO. AND. I. HARD. MOUNT. EVERYTHING. MMMMMMMMMM

Sir Psycho Sexy wrote:

So Robo, if you were to take the RSSA off, you could pull the RBMs out and remount the RSSA directly to the body without having to do any welding or cutting or anything?

..well, no.You would have to weld nuts to the body directly underneath the RSSA for the RSSA hold down bolts to bolt into.Welding at some point would have to be adapted to the mod.I haven't heard from Turtle yet so I dont know what his plans are?
I did not test my mod with rubber mounted RBMs.I immediately got rid of the rubber bushings along with the Links.I'm sure there will be some benefits.

charlieRobinson wrote:

robotennis61 wrote:

Mr.Riviera wrote:

so have you pushed it through a corner yet? Any discernable difference in ride?

I hate to say it but if Turtle doesn't hard mount the RBMs a great part of the mod wont be realized. The RSSA is bolted to the RBM that in turn is bolted to the body by way of ultra soft rubber bushings.If the rubber bushings are left in the purpose of the mod is defeated to a point.Some performance will be had but nothing close to the max possible. jus sayin...

MMMMM. MY. NAME. IS. MMMMMMM. ROBO. AND. I. HARD. MOUNT. EVERYTHING. MMMMMMMMMM

Yup! It makes a huge difference.I am serious.It's just insane how much sharper a 3480 pound car behaves when most of the engineered suspension deflection is eliminated.It's ridiculous

That's a sweet pickle fork, And another FISH corner!!!

I was supposed to go over to the NTB my friend works at this morning and get a very much needed 4 wheel alignment but the storms we had killed power there and my luck would have it this is his last day working there! So now I have to go try to find some place that doesn't suck to do it and pay for it. My last experience with getting a "professional" alignment was discouraging to put it nice.

I can't really fairly report the differences with these new links but I would agree with robo that just these alone shouldn't really change much. It's shedding a teeny-tiny bit of mostly unsprung weight and overall trading one soft sleeve joint for a solid joint (the inside of the arm).

I have no plans to do anything else to the rear suspension as of now except maybe replace the RSSA with a newer one one day. At that point I'll evaluate the possibility of solid mounting it to the unibody with some custom mount plates or something.

The problem with me making more of these sets to sale is the place I work at is generally never slow and I really don't want to spend lots of extra time there off the clock. I will see what I can do though.

It would be easy to come up with a solid RBM mount.The RBM is nothing more than a rubber encapsulated long cylidrical nut. I cut the nut in half and removed all the rubber and then welded the nut to the inside of the RBM and then mounted it to it's stock location.simple.remove the RBM cut it up and take it to a muffler shop.$20's later and its done.
A string alignment is Sooo easy.The Riviera somehow lends itself nicely to DIY alignments.All the adjusting nuts are accesible and easy to turn with hand tools. I've been doing my own alignments using this method for a few years now.I can drive my Riv anywhere and at highway speeds and if I'm so inclined I can steer her with just the tip of my thumb.It's so easy. Alignments IMO have pretended to become the black art of the auto repair world.It's bullshit! race car teams have been using string to align they're race cars for ever! SAVE YOUR MONEY!!

turtleman wrote:

I was supposed to go over to the NTB my friend works at this morning and get a very much needed 4 wheel alignment but the storms we had killed power there and my luck would have it this is his last day working there! So now I have to go try to find some place that doesn't suck to do it and pay for it. My last experience with getting a "professional" alignment was discouraging to put it nice.

I can't really fairly report the differences with these new links but I would agree with robo that just these alone shouldn't really change much. It's shedding a teeny-tiny bit of mostly unsprung weight and overall trading one soft sleeve joint for a solid joint (the inside of the arm).

I have no plans to do anything else to the rear suspension as of now except maybe replace the RSSA with a newer one one day. At that point I'll evaluate the possibility of solid mounting it to the unibody with some custom mount plates or something.

The problem with me making more of these sets to sale is the place I work at is generally never slow and I really don't want to spend lots of extra time there off the clock. I will see what I can do though.

Hey Turtle,if you come across a set of junked RBM's,send 'em to me and I'll modify 'em for you.I mean,if welding is a problem for you at this time? no sweat.
It's the RBM's who are the major No-No factor in the mod.they allow the links to move constantly fore and aft and side to side continuously ,changing toe while you drive for comforts sake. This leads to vague feeling handling. Without the hard mounted RBM the mod quickly becomes just a better looking set of adj. links. But thats still ok,I mean,you cant even buy the OE's anymore.

Codith, any word on a hardware kit? Even a one off? I'm assuming those spacers you made were custom machined so I would either need you to make them or a cad file to have the guy up the road make them. The quest for handling ensues.....

http://www.grandprixforums.net/threads/94483-monster-trailing-arm-upgrade-**cheap**

I struggled to read that in English.