for those of you with lowered stangs...

I have had a problem with the lower control arms for about a year now and it's driving me insane. My car is lowered with the Eibach pro-kit from the previous owner. I got the blue oval industries UCA's and LCA's for my 94 GT soon after I purchased it because the bushings in the factory control arms were shot. The blue oval ones were fine for a few years and then it started tearing up the polyurethane bushings in them. It is always the lower control arms- never had a problem with the uppers. I have replaced the bushings in both sides of the lower's where they connect to the rear axle- once on the driver's side and twice on the passenger side. Now the bushing where the LCA hooks to the frame is torn up on the pass side. I took the car to a body shop and had the frame checked and the frame is straight. I took it to a mechanic today to see if he could find something I couldn't with the rear end. He said it's fine. His suggestion was because the rear of the car is lowered- when the car is sitting at ride height the LCA doesn't go down from the frame to the axle it goes slightly up and this could possibly be causing the bushings to bind causing premature failure. His suggestion was to put it back up to stock height. I called Eibach and asked if they had ever heard of anybody having similar problems due to the angle of the LCA and he said I was the first person he had ever heard of with this problem. SO-what's left Has anyone else experienced a similar problem? Help me out before I go postal!

earleys94gt said:

Do you still have the quad-shocks on the back? From what I have heard once the car is lowered, the quad shocks can go.

This is because the quad shocks are supposed to help reduce wheel hop on a stock level car. Once the ride height is lowered, they can start to cause a "binding" action. Just my 0.02

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No the quad shocks are long gone. I have 17x10.5's on the back.

Methodical said:

Plus with the MM you can grease the bushings

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The ones I have have are greasable also. I grease them every time I change oil.

1TallMF said:

I agree the problem is likely all the stiff poly bushings. Those bushings don't have alot of give to them, and the rotation of the axle puts a helluvalot of load on them, so they eventually give. If in your shoes, I'd be inclined to move to either 3-piece poly bushings or spherical metal bushings (such as MM arms), as mentioned by WhiteCobra95.

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Would I be OK to just replace the lower's and leave the uppers as they are? I've never had a problem with the bushings in them (yet)

Well for now I guess I'll just replace the bushing. I still have 1 new poly bushing left so might as well fix it for free. When I get some $ I'll definately go with an all new set of arms. WhiteCobra I understand what you're saying about the poly's wearing out due to hard cornering, and I don't really know why that would be an issue for me because my car is just my DD. I don't think it knows what hard cornering is lol. It has a pretty cushy life- mostly hwy miles- RPM's rarely go over 2500. I'm in Florida so all the roads are straight! Does anybody on here have aftermarket control arms that have a lot of miles on them with no problems? I would guess these bushings on mine lasted about 60-80 thousand miles.

SVT32VDOHC said:

Do you tighten the bolts while the car is in the air? You should tighten them while it is on the ground. I tightened the ones on my 81 notch in the air. The thing had a horribly stiff suspension and it sat up 29-1/2 inches. I then loosened them, put it on the ground and tightened them......Yeah....lowered the car to 27-1/2"..(where it should be) and the ride was 100% better. The damn bolts were too tight and it was holding the car up and binding everything. This was just in the lowers, I didn't touch the uppers.

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I put the bushings in and left the bolts loose- put the wheels on it and drove it down the driveway and back into the garage to let the suspension settle a little. Then jacked it up by the diff and tightened the bolts up. The rear suspension was compressed so it should be the same right?