Some more progress to report today. My front lower control arms finally arrived, so I spent some quality time in the garage putting the IFS components together. Everything fit together reasonably well, with a few minor hiccups. The DS front bracket needed quite a bit of work with a spreading tool to get the lower control arm in place. The PS front bracket had the opposite situation – it actually had enough extra space to fit one of the spacers. Although the manual only says to use the spacers in the rear bracket, I assume it is OK to also use them to take space in the front brackets too, if necessary:



If I’m wrong about that, please let me know!

Anyway, here’s how everything looks now (not yet torqued to spec). Please let me know if you see anything wrong. I would not be at all surprised if I did something incorrectly.



I have not tightened anything to spec yet for two reasons. First, my torque wrench only goes up to 80 ft. lbs., nowhere near the 225-250 ft. lbs. needed for the wheel hubs. I was planning on borrowing/renting a big wrench from Auto Zone, but their lending program is apparently suspended because of COVID-19.

The other reason I’m waiting is that I’ve decided to install a power steering rack, and now I’m wondering if I need to trim a bit off the UCA adjusting sleeves. I know a number of threads have discussed this, e.g., https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/show...ter-amp-Camber. As a noobie, I’m really hesitant to take a hack saw to any portion of my front suspension, but I understand it will likely need to be done eventually because of the PS option. My question is: is it better to wait until I’ve actually done a rough alignment to figure out how much (if any) needs to be trimmed? Or go ahead and trim some off now, following the guidance of others who have already done it?

My next step is going to be the power steering rack, so we’ll see how that goes . . .