Rod End Rear Lower Control Arm Kit

These control arms are for Factory Five Racing Roadsters, Coupes, and ’33 Hot Rods with 3-link solid axle rear suspension. They are carefully designed to eliminate the many functional problems inherent in the polyurethane bushed aftermarket control arms from Factory Five and others.
It is instructional to review these problems here. They are:
– Friction binding when the car encounters a bump because grease is rapidly wiped out between the polyurethane and the bushing tube. This requires frequent greasing which is typically not done.
– Mechanical binding when the car encounters a bump and when the car wants to lean in corners because the joints do not allow the ends of the arms to twist with the relative position change between the frame and the axle. This is exacerbated by the trapezoidal lower control arm arrangement left over from the Mustang suspension design. Think of a door with 4 hinges mounted all on different axes – it will not want to open! Also known as “roll bind”.
– Loosening and play the arm location due to inadequate design of the steel bushing tube. Steel bushing tubes are supposed to remain stationary with the frame or axle bracket with the polyurethane sliding on a layer of grease between the bushing and the tube. Since the ends of the tube are not knurled there is little friction between the tube and the frame. Commonly the clamp load of the mounting bolts is taken up by polyurethane supported by the control arm tube rather than the steel bushing tube. As the grease layer rapidly becomes insufficient the tube wants to rotate with the bushing and and the two twist against the frame. As the twisting continues with use, the powder-coat wears off, the metal surfaces wear and the mounting bolts lose their clamping force. Once the control arm is loose, all the forward force to accelerate the car is acting on the frame tab holes where the control arm bolts hold the arm to the axle and car. At the threaded end of the bolt the threads dig into the frame and begin to enlarge and elongate and frame hole. This results in a control arm that slams back and forth each time the car accelerates and brakes.

Breeze Rear Lower Arms utilize Slot Loaded Ball Rod Ends with Injection Molded Race:
Use of spherical bearing rod ends allows free twisting of each end to minimize mechanical and friction bind. The free bearing motion allows the suspension soak up bumps and lean as intended.

Offset bearing inserts:
– The 5.0 Mustang suspension used a trapezoidal arrangement of the primarily the upper control arms, but also the lower control arms to laterally locate the axle housing. This works in the Mustang because the large soft rubber control arm bushing allow twist, rotation and change in center to center length of all the suspension arms. The addition of a proper pan-hard rod in the FFR 3-Link suspension obviates the need for trapezoidal arm arrangement. The Breeze bushings are two different lengths, allowing the front mounting point to be moved outboard and the rear mounting point to be moved inboard. This makes the arms closer to parallel and reduces mechanical bind.

A better bearing insert:
Other vendors make control arms with rod-ends to reduce bind, but it is the size of the rod-end and it’s how they are mounted in the chassis that makes a difference. Only Breeze Automotive uses a 3/4″ Rod-end and has designed closely toleranced one-piece bearing inserts to eliminate the play inherent in the cheaper “tube in a tube” approach. Breeze inserts have knurled ends that bite into the frame tabs to eliminate another source of play. The zero-play mounting arrangement eliminates intermittent alignment changes that can cause squirrely handling.

Thrust alignment possible:
– We ship the arms set to the OEM length of 17-5/8” so you can bolt these in and go. Since the arms are adjustable in length you can perform thrust angle alignment if desired at any time.

Lighter weight = higher performance:
– These arms weigh less. A complete arm assembly with inserts weighs 3lb-1oz, which is a savings of about 3lbs per arm compared to the FFR tubular steel rear lower control arms.