Calling all spiderbox owners
 

To those spiderbox owners, I ask a simple question. If you added zerk fittings to the control arms, did you drill through the inner steel sleeve? If so, why?

I added the latest style control arms on mine which uses 5/8" bolts and no steel sleeves or bronze bushings, so just adding a zerk would work great for me.

I too have wondered this very question you ask, so it will be interesting to see the response.

if no one chimes in, check out metalstudman's spiderbox build thread that he did for his wife. he did the zerks, don't recall to what level he drilled. --it all comes down to where you want the grease to go to --thru bolt/inner sleeve, or outer sleeve and ID of arm layer.

Yea, the inner sleeves are drilled and chamfered so the grease can get to the through bolt

@x-bird- I saw metals' build thread, but unfortunately hes not around to ask why.....

@ckau- This is the reason I was asking the why, the inner sleeve on mine is roughly .010" longer than the bushings, which would clamp the sleeve against the front and rear tabs, and still allow for the bushings to move freely on the sleeve. As I see it, I really saw no reason to allow grease to get to the bolt, as it would be sealed on the ends anyway, the grease would, however, be needed between the sleeve and the brass bushings.

Nevertheless, I won't be putting any zerks in for now, I tried today and failed miserably 2 times on the same arm, resulting in thrown tools, 3 destroyed zerk fittings, and 2 holes drilled into the control arm tube. The smallest fittings are too long, and hit the steel sleeve, when I tried to machine one down to fit, the guts sprang out, not to mention, the recommended drill size was too big for the fitting to tighten down in, dropped 1 size drill bit and started again, only to have it too small for the threads to start. I just packed the tubes with gobs of heavy bearing grease and made sure the bushings were nice and smooth, maybe I'll try later, but I'm growing tired of front end work....

The through bolts should not be tightened enough to pinch the end bushings against the mounting tabs. just tight enough to prevent any front to back movement. The end bushing are intended to center the through bolt in the a-arm tube. The a-arm bushing should rotate freely on the through bolt. that's why it's important to get grease on that bolt.
Trimming a touch off the zerk fitting does cause the spring and check ball to fall out but the hole is so small, grease packed into the zerk forms a seal so no measurable amount of contamination gets in. You do get a lot of crud in from the ends around the through bolt so a shot of grease pushes the dirt back out. Hit the zerk with a grease gun until you see clean fresh grease squeeze out from around the bushing ends, wipe the dirty grease off and your done.
zerks have a tapered thread and are self tapping so the correct size drill bit is important. Tapping the holes will aid in setting the zerk. Assemble the a-arm with the bushings and inner sleave in place, clamp in a vise or use a c-clamp to hold it all together then drill the tube and inner space at the same time. Remove the inner spacer and enlarge that hole so it can shift around and center it's self without hanging on the zerk end when the end bushings are pressed in. Remove any burrs and make sure it will spin on the bolt without binding. A rat tail file is needed inside the spacer sleeve to clean it up. If you align the spacer hole with the tube hole before running in the zerk allows for a little extra clearance for the zerk length. you can zap those boo-boo holes with the welder sand them smooth and use the rat tail to clean up the interior, then you can start fresh.

I feel your angst, sometimes ya just gotta walk away til another day!

In X-Bird's case, where he doesn't use the inner sleeve you would need to weld a small nut on the outside of the a-arm tube then drill through the center hole of that nut into the tube. Thread the zerk into the nut. The nut serves as a spacer so the zerk doesn't bottom out on the through bolt

If it was harder to get to and remove, I might be more concerned about the zerks, but at this point, the amount of cleaning and polishing and deburring the tabs, sleeves, tubes and bushings, I got them sorted out for now. I closed up the holes and filed them down so that issue is fixed, too.

I don't know about yours, or anyone elses, but my sleeves are .010" longer than the installed bushings in the tubes, so when you tighten the bolt, it clamps on the sleeve, not the bushings, allowing free movement of the arms, and no play in the bolt and sleeve area, as I purposely bought bolts with enough shoulder to match the length of the sleeve to reduce the play in the threaded ends of the bolts from the factory. I also took some time to clearance any interference with the bushings to the bulkhead, as the tabs tend to flex when tightened down, this took some time, but the results are free moving a-arms and little, if any, front to back play in the bushings.