Got bored yesterday and decided to box my trailing arms. I had some steel plate lying around and I've been wanting to do it. I have to do the left side today. It took a few hours to do the driver side.

When I took it off I put one end in my big vise and stuck an extension through the other side. I could get the arm to twist by hand. After the welding I tried it again. No more hand twist. . Later I may do the bushings but they were pretty tight as is. Now to figure out the panhard bar.

 

Made tubular trailing arms after the driver side rear are kept bending and spreading open.

 

 

if these don't work out i will make tubular ones. i had the **** lying around and got bored so we will see how they do.

I need to get some gas for my new welder so I can stop using flux core.

 

I have been thinking of doing this for a while to help with the slop and sway when towing the truck, just never got around to it. I think I have some bad bushings so I will likely be doing this sooner than later. Edlebrock used to have a cheap set of LCA and a panhard but think they have since been discontinued. The Hotchkis LCA are just too pricy. Let us know how the boxed stock LCA works and the panhard if you get it figured out.

 

U can use lower trailing arms for B body caprice/impala, bolt to bolt on arm is same distance as our trucks.

 

i may do a DOM pan hard, not sure though. i'll come up with something. i want to do a nice strong sway bar also. i found a huge truck front and then a good sized Tahoe rear to mis match and through in there.

 

Any noticeable improvement from the trailing arm mod?

 

Search Roadmaster trailing arms on ebay. Got mine years ago for $150 from PMT Fabrication. Can't say I noticed a difference in handling, but the rear end stays planted when I get on the gas.

 

I will probably be building some tubular arms in the near future. Never noticed much "sway" from the factory ones but we all know how weak they are. The boxing is a good idea though. Seems like "a few hours" is an long time to accomplish this though especialy for one side. What did you do around the bushings to not melt them? Or since you plan to replace them did you pay them any mind?