tires rubbing on A-arms now?
 

Well recently i have done my body lift and am running 38" tires...i never had the problem of rubbing the A-arms before because they would rub the fenders before they got that far :p so now it seems they are rubbing on the A-arms...does anyone know where it would be rubbing? i got under there to take a quick look at there is a point sticking off the front of both A-arms...what is the purpose of that? could i just grind it off? i noticed even before i did the body lift that this "point" is putting a good sized cut on the inside of my driver tire...also, if i remember right, there is something else that sticks off the front of the A-arm. I am going from memory of a quick look so im not sure...I will try and get pictures of the things i am talking about today and post them up here. but i figured i would post this up cause i figured some of yall have probably had this problem before. Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks

look at the lower a arms. there should be a 1'' extension tab off of it designed to be used as an oem jacking point. cut the SOB off. there is also a little bit of a point sticking out in the middle. grind it back flush. that should fix your problem. how wide are your 38's?

thats probably what i was thinking about...so those things wont cause any kind of balance issues or anything like that will they :p thats the last thing i need...but it sounds like i know what im doin tonight then :)

and to tell you the truth...i dont know how wide my tires are off the top of my head. :lol:

no, the LCA is a solid cast iron piece. you will face no ill effects by trimming them like i said.

the 04-08 F-150 uses aluminum LCA's that don't even have the tabs that cause the rubbing on our 97-03 trucks.

if you're running like a 14.50-15.50'' wide tire, you're going to face some minor rubbing on the tie rods and torsion bars that you're just going to have to deal with...

also, what are your wheel specs? you should be running a 9-10'' wide wheel w/ 4.50-4.625 in backspacing per fabtech's specs.

ummm...where could i find all this out? is all that info on the tires? cause these are the rims that came on the truck so i have no idea what they are. :lol:

well, the tire's width should be contained in its size. for example, a 38x15.50x16 tire is roughly 38'' tall with a section width of 15.50'' that mounts on a 16'' rim.

on the rim, well, either call the manufacturer, or look at their website. you have the 5x135 bolt pattern. or, you could physically measure its width and backspacing yourself. backspacing is the distance from the back of the center of the wheel to its lip.

did you trim the lower control arms yet? it will help, trust me. depending on how wide your tires are, it may entirely stop the rubbing altogether.

I have the same problem as well and received the same info. locally. I plan on trimming sometime in the next 1-2 months when I put my summer rims/tires on :thumbsup:

when i ran just a body lift and 35's like you wrobo23, i faced rubbing on the control arms and frame. trimming the control arms would help you, wrobo23, but i still faced rubbing on the frame at full lock on uneven roads/terrain, and i suspect you still would, too.

Yeah I realize that I may still have some rub, but I would assume that I can knock some of it out by trimming. Right now as it sits my tires are going to be fubared in 15-20k miles if this keeps up :lol:

i havent trimmed them yet...i have been busy every night this week. so i will do it for sure this weekend if not sooner.

wrobo, before i added a 6'' fabtech, and just had the 3'' body lift on 35's, i rubbed on two separate spots on the frame, the torsion bars, and the control arms sometimes, but only on sloped roads at full lock. on flat roads at full lock, i never rubbed. even when i rubbed, it was never in all of those spots at once.

trimming the control arms back flush will help a lot, as that extension tab sticks off the arm like an inch or so.

so today i went out and trimmed my lower A-arms in order to eleminate some rubbing from my 38s...and it helped but...i also rub on the torsion bars. I guess there isnt any way to change that...except for the backspacing on the rims i guess? im not as worried about this rubbing because it doesnt damage the tires like the things on the A-arms did.

has anyone else had this problem?

also, has anyone had a problem with the shock mounts breaking? i have now had both of them in the front break. i have fixed them but it just seems odd that they would both break like that. is it common for these f150s to have that problem? one of my buddies mentioned that he thinks my shocks might be too short...? but when i had the shock out, it seemed to extended more than far enough but it was hard to tell.

any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

well. here's the deal. as you cranked the torsion bar up, the lca is pushed down. this forces the cv joint into a bad angle, and also extends the shock piston out past its halfway point of travel. technically, you have lost some suspension travel as well. i would seriously consider backing down the preload of the bars, if possible. as far as the tire rubbing the bars, there's nothing you can do to fix that. deal w/ it, or go to a 13.50 wide tire if you want no rubbing at all.

in order for me to give you a better answer, i need to know your exact wheel/tire specs. you should be running a 10'' wide wheel w/ 4.5'' backspacing. if you want to discuss specifics over the phone, pm me your number.