Recently purchased the FLM Super ext chassis kit with the ext arms as well. Nice kit but have found a few problems. Missing e-clips, thing's not completely tapped all the way through, and problem's with mounting the shocks. First two I can deal with, third is a tad more difficult. The rear shock's themselves bolt just fine to the rear shock tower, but when trying to bolt to the rear a-arm there is a good 1/4 inch gap, if not more between the shock and the arm itself. I was thinking the goofy lookin alum spacer might be what's needed but when trying this route the included hardware doesn't reach the threads. Anyone else encountered anything like this?
Sounds like it may depend on the type of shock & rodend size used. Check also that the tower is on the right way around, just incase its a reversable design as such. Nothing wrong with using the little spacer/ shim things though, they dont look out of place and are pretty much designed for such occasions ( one of the small prices to pay sometimes when doing a custom build vs buying rtr ).
thanks for the fast reply man, always appreciated. anyhow yeah the shock tower is on correct, pushrod mounts are on the back of the shock tower. For shocks I got regular big bore's bolted up. But ya thinking a trip to the hardware store is in order, probably just use some spacers and a tad bit longer hardware as well.
Huh, that gap is larger than I had imagined, definately doesnt look right. I'd say have a quick search for other users with FLM rearends on their rusties and pedes, see if anything looks different or is obviously missing etc- I would normally have a rummage myself but I gotta shoot off to work now.
oh yeah, been at that for the past couple days trying to figure out what's up. not much luck on finding someone with a similar problem and going through about as many photo's of FLM rusty's I can find. Thinking it's probably just going to be a creative solution type of situation.
It almost seems like either the arms are the wrong shape ( machining error ), whnich is unlikely, or that they are too far back- could just be because its FLM arms + stock tranny case with the built on arm mounts, vs the bolt on arm mounts for different toe in angles. Meh- if you can find some ~1/8" - 1/4" spacers then that'll do the trick :thumbsup:
oh yeah, otherwise i wouldn't be able to mount the shock's at all. the shock cap would hit the tower. Maybe my spacer's for the top were mis-machined. I had to sand down part of it for the shock to even fit over it. Do you have the standard width arms or the EXT arms snell? i might have to go back and take some better photo's tho. think ill probably contact jami at FLM and see what his opinion is as well.