Capri Brake Issues!

[DrFestiva88]

This evening I decided to put my Capri brakes on and I ran into all sorts of issues. I have aspire control arms, but the ball joint doesn't seem to have enough of an angle to work. I tried removing the sway bar, bolting it up without the axel in (just to see if it fit), I removed the strut and tried to bring it more to the knuckle, etc.

In the end, I've gotten very close, but still not there. My issue is: I can bolt the strut to the knuckle, but then the ball joint will not fit in - or vise versa.

This is how close I'm getting:



This is the angle of the ball joint



From what I've heard, this is a straightforward swap, but it's not going very smooth for me.

Any tips? Has anyone ran into this issue before?

[Cory_Thurmond]

Have you tried limiting the down travel?

I feel like you should be putting botttom strut bolt in first that helps mine...

Not much useful info
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[DrFestiva88]

Nah, from what I've heard you'd have too much positive camber.

I jacked up the knuckle from the bottom and it's close. I put a narrow grade 8 through there until I can get to it tomorrow.

[Cory_Thurmond]

That angle on arm next to ball joint does not look like an aspire control arm to me. Might just be the picture

Can you post a picture of this control arm? Cuase i really cant see how that could be an aspire control arm.




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[TominMO]

I remember having the same issue, years ago when I did this. I think Cory was tight, it requires a specific order for the two bottom strut bolts. Install the bottom one, then jack up the knuckle to align the top holes. Might also have to push it in a bit.

[DrFestiva88]

I finally got it on this morning. I'll mention my steps in case someone ever searches this thread for reference.

1. Remove sway bar - this helped me, but I'm sure it can be done without this step.
2. Attach proximal portion of the ASPIRE control arm to the body of the car. Make sure you are careful with this - unless you feel like welding a new nut in. I used some 'liquid wrench' I set my impact to 1 and tightened before I backed it out. Works for me everytime.
3. Attach distal end to capture the ball joint.
4. Feed axle through.
5. Use a mallet to get the bottom strut bolt in.
6. I put a jack under the knuckle and jacked it up quite a bit. I didn't think it could come back down because of the tension. However, once I put the top strut mount in and lowered the jack, it was sitting well.
7. Reattach sway bar
8. Attach tie-rod end

Also, if you use Escort GT calipers like I did - the hardware part # is H15018. Autozone kept giving me the wrong part. I said "your computer doesn't know what I'm doing."

I also bought the Accord inner tie rod boots and they fit great. Highly recommended.

[TominMO]

Thanks for the install steps. I'm sure it will help someone in the future.

[DrFestiva88]

The passenger side went on much faster, but I still had some issues. I could barely get the half-shaft into the knuckle. So, I just did the same order above, but I took a mallet to the knuckle to work the axle out. Then I had to take a mallet to the inner portion of the axel too - be careful with your boot.

Then I put the axle nut on with an impact to pull it into place - worked perfect.

I have some MAJOR toe out on the passenger side and slight toe out/negative camber on the driver side. I'm going to do the alignment tonight and see how everything looks.