Adjustable strut rods?

[1973Barracuda]

Rebuilding my front end with Firmfell stuff. Have Hotchkis uppers, 1.1 TBs, Bilstien shocks, sway bars- I have read about adjustable, and seems mixed. Any extra thoughts on their worth?

[Brads70]

I made my own, they are nice in that you can adjust them to find the "sweet spot" where the suspension moves the most free but adjusted wrong they will cause bad issues like the lower control arm bushing to wear out really quick. When they build these cars ( or any car for that matter) accumulative tolerances can stack up putting things slightly off from "perfect" having these adjustable allows you to get as close as possible to " perfect" 

[1 Wild R/T]

The Hotchkis uppers should give you all the caster you need... I don't see a problem with the adjustable strut rods for small fine tuning of the caster adjustments but when people try to use them to gain 2-3+ degrees of caster you risk putting the LCA bushing into a bind.....

[autoxcuda]

Hotchkis ones with spherical rod ends?

Or adjustable with poly bushings?

My hotchkis rod ends were shot in 8K miles. So I'd go bushings.

For sure go adjustable. Just matter of picking which. You use the adjustable to make sure the lower control arm travel is not binded with poly lower control arm bushings.

Sounds like you are on the more aggressive occasionsal track day direction?

[1973Barracuda]

Auotcross,

I am looking for an aggressive street set up. Not sure if I will autox. Maybe. I do like an aggressive car.

[GoodysGotaCuda]

My hotchkis rod ends were shot in 8K miles. So I'd go bushings.

Did your rod ends have the boots on them?

[autoxcuda]

My hotchkis rod ends were shot in 8K miles. So I'd go bushings.

Did your rod ends have the boots on them?

No.

I spray lube and wipe them regularly.

Its always garaged in So Cal. Never sees rain (we don't have any).

Dry climate, clean city roads, etc.

Pretty pampered life.

I'll replace them with higher quality rod ends and boots.

[GoodysGotaCuda]

My hotchkis rod ends were shot in 8K miles. So I'd go bushings.

Did your rod ends have the boots on them?

No.

I spray lube and wipe them regularly.

Its always garaged in So Cal. Never sees rain (we don't have any).

Dry climate, clean city roads, etc.

Pretty pampered life.

I'll replace them with higher quality rod ends and boots.

Mine should make an interesting comparison then. I am up to about 5,000 road miles, no racing and a few hours worth of driving in the rain. They do have boots on them, however.

[72bluNblu]

I think they're a must have item. The stock strut rods were just a "one size fits most" kind of deal that don't at all guarantee that your lower control arm is in the right spot to avoid binding. And they depend heavily on the rubber bushings allowing quite a bit of movement.

If you start getting rid of the OE style rubber bushings the adjustable strut rods are necessary to make sure your LCA doesn't bind up anywhere in its range of travel, the poly and Delrin bushings just aren't as forgiving on tolerances. You have to be able to adjust the length to get an LCA that moves freely without binding. They shouldn't be used to add caster for that reason, although you might still gain some with the length adjusted properly.

As for the rod ends, the set of rod ends on the strut rods in my Challenger have about 70,000 miles on them. No boots, car was a year round daily driver that whole time, saw a good amount of wet weather driving and even some snow. Those rod ends are still in decent shape, I never really did any additional cleaning or lubrication on them either. Lubricants, other than a dry lube, tend to attract dirt if they're not booted.

Now, the rod ends that came with my Hotchkis UCA's only lasted 7k miles on the same car. That was without boots. Hotchkis sent me replacements and a set of boots, but after another 7k miles the rod ends are showing signs of wear again. I doubt they'd make 10k miles. Maybe Hotchkis just uses crap rod ends. I don't like using rod ends at the UCA though, I use bushed UCA's on my other cars. I only use the rod ends on the Challenger because of the relocated suspension points the Hotchkis UCA's have.

I also have a good 15k miles on the rod ends on the adjustable strut rods on my Duster. No issues with those either.

[dodj]

Rebuilding my front end with Firmfell stuff. Have Hotchkis uppers, 1.1 TBs, Bilstien shocks, sway bars- I have read about adjustable, and seems mixed. Any extra thoughts on their worth?

In my opinion, adjustable strut rods are a good idea, but not to adjust caster.
Your hotchkis uppers will likely be problematic. Not a very durable piece. Expensive, but only good for less than 10k km. I know two people locally that have them and both had problems and had to replace the heim joints.

[1973Barracuda]

Wow, not what I wanted to hear concerning the upppers. Bought them a few years ago while a big sale was going on. Do you know if those failures had the boots on the joint?

Thanks

[dodj]

No boots. Northern Ontario. We have salt on the roads. Not sure if those cars ever saw the salt but may have been a factor. They weren't out in the snow but the salt sticks around on the roads for a while after the snow is gone.
After hearing from them and 72blunblu's experience (maybe 3 or 4 years ago?) , I decided to go with the moog offset bushings. If I was doing it now, I'd go QA1 for uca's and strut rods.

[GoodysGotaCuda]

Rebuilding my front end with Firmfell stuff. Have Hotchkis uppers, 1.1 TBs, Bilstien shocks, sway bars- I have read about adjustable, and seems mixed. Any extra thoughts on their worth?

In my opinion, adjustable strut rods are a good idea, but not to adjust caster.
Your hotchkis uppers will likely be problematic. Not a very durable piece. Expensive, but only good for less than 10k km. I know two people locally that have them and both had problems and had to replace the heim joints.

It depends on the viewpoint.

Mine is, anything with a rod end should be considered a race part, a race part does require frequent maintenance, but it does offer maximum performance. If you wanted something with no maintenance, you need bushings. Period. This is kind of like complaining about sticky tires wearing out quickly, it comes with the territory.

I ran 5,000 miles last year, if I get another 5,000+ out of mine [with boots], that covers two years worth of 'Cuda driving. I'm content with that service interval on the part. I do wish mine were the new style that adjusted on the car, however.

[70Barracuda]

My alignment guy was really happy I put the FF adjustable's on.  Really happy w my FF front end.

[72bluNblu]

Wow, not what I wanted to hear concerning the upppers. Bought them a few years ago while a big sale was going on. Do you know if those failures had the boots on the joint?

Thanks

On my car the first set of heims I went through on the Hotchkis UCA's did not have boots. They only lasted about 7k miles, and after posting about it on cuda-challenger Hotchkis actually sent me a free set of replacement heims and boots. That set has about 7k miles on them now, but are again starting to show signs of wear. My Challenger is coming apart so I'll be replacing them before it hits the road again, I doubt that they would make it to 10k miles before a change out.

Now, my Challenger was my daily driver before I took it off the road for a rebuild. It was driven year round and in all weather conditions. It saw plenty of rain, some occasional snow, and a stretch of dirt road that my parents live on for visits. Probably the worst case scenario for use and wear. The only thing it didn't see was salt, they don't use that stuff out here.

I do plan on keeping my Hotchkis UCA's on the car. I like the corrected geometry. I will definitely be going with a different set of heims and sourcing them myself, just to rule out the possibility that it's the quality of the heims that's the problem.

Rebuilding my front end with Firmfell stuff. Have Hotchkis uppers, 1.1 TBs, Bilstien shocks, sway bars- I have read about adjustable, and seems mixed. Any extra thoughts on their worth?

In my opinion, adjustable strut rods are a good idea, but not to adjust caster.
Your hotchkis uppers will likely be problematic. Not a very durable piece. Expensive, but only good for less than 10k km. I know two people locally that have them and both had problems and had to replace the heim joints.

It depends on the viewpoint.

Mine is, anything with a rod end should be considered a race part, a race part does require frequent maintenance, but it does offer maximum performance. If you wanted something with no maintenance, you need bushings. Period. This is kind of like complaining about sticky tires wearing out quickly, it comes with the territory.

I ran 5,000 miles last year, if I get another 5,000+ out of mine [with boots], that covers two years worth of 'Cuda driving. I'm content with that service interval on the part. I do wish mine were the new style that adjusted on the car, however.

This is true, heims are a wearing part. Just like ball joints and even bushings, they all have a life span. A life span of 7k miles is pretty darn short though, and the need for an alignment every time the parts are replaced adds to the fun.

Now, that said, I've never had a problem with the heims on the strut rods. The heims on the adjustable strut rods I have on my Challenger have seen 70,000 miles, without boots, and they don't show signs of excessive wear. They were exposed to the same conditions that killed the first set of Hotchkis UCA heims in 7k miles and put wear on the booted second set in another 7k miles. The set of heims in the strut rods on my Duster has seen 15k miles or so without any issues so far too.

I'm not entirely sure why the strut rod heims on my Challenger have done so well and why the UCA's heims have failed in such short order. Some of it I'm sure is the application, the strut rod and UCA heims see different loading situations and amounts of force, and varying amounts of travel. The heims on the UCA's on my Challenger also operate very close to the ends of their travel range, which may be part of it as well. Some of it may be the size of the heim, the strut rod heims are larger, so the loads are spread out over a larger surface area. Of course at the UCA the load is split between two heims. Some of it may be the heims themselves, I don't know the manufacturer of either one. The strut rods on my Challenger are original parts from CAP, so I wouldn't say they're likely to be high quality  , while I would imagine that the Hotchkis heims are from a decent manufacturer at least.

For me, I don't worry about the heims at the strut rods. At the UCA, I avoid them on my other cars. I have SPC UCA's with delrin bushings on my Duster.