That was what I suspected.

Spent the evening in the garage. I have accomplished nearly everything I can with the parts I have. One thing I can see already - I will need more blades for my deburring tool, there have been nasty burrs on every part I've touched so far.

First up was the lower control arms, they went in with little trouble. I did have to file the powdercoating out of the holes on the frame, but this was expected from reading other builds. Then the uppers, aside from having a few spots that were too tight to get a tool in, and shaving the rear washers on the inside, also went in with little trouble.



I apparently got lucky with my upper ball joints. I was prepared to fight them after reading a number of reports of them needing to be cleaned up to thread in but both of mine threaded in all the way by hand, I just snugged them up in the vise. Coilover assembly was likewise, everything slipped together like it was supposed to. Installation of the shocks is where it all started to fall apart. The misalignment spacers were all too wide to fit and had nasty burs on the outside and inside that caught on the edges of the heim joint and the holes in the brackets. I had to grind them all a little smaller and chamfer the inner and outer edges slightly, they were still a bear to get in place. The top mounts went in slightly easier than the bottom, only requiring chamfers but no additional grinding. The F5 spindles went in just as expected, but I was surprised to have to use the spacer provided with the LCAs - I figured with two F5 designed parts that would not be needed. No matter, Installed the spacer and all is well there.


I did encounter some "work stoppage" problems. The first is pretty minor but I figured I would see what y'all had to say about it before doing anything.

The spindles were supplied with these bolt-on steering arms:


Not only do they seem WAY too close to the caliper mount, but they interfere with ribbing on the back of the spindle before they are properly tightened. The passenger side is worse than the drivers




My assembly manual has nothing regarding the F5 spindles, so I am figuring this out on my own. The spindles are labeled PSS and DSS, so I am pretty sure they are on the right sides at least.