Early C4 rear spindles/knuckles: Differences?

69427

The Artist formerly known as Turbo84
Joined
Mar 30, 2008
Messages
2,972
Location
Clinging to my guns and religion in KCMO.
I've got a '92 C4 rear suspension in my street rod truck ('51 Chevy), and I've decided to reduce the trackwidth a touch to give me a little more tire clearance at the fender well opening. I was thinking of swapping out the present knuckle assembly and putting in an early C4 assembly. Given the change to ABS in '86(?), am I correct that the 84/85 assemblies would be identical, and the '86 through '88 parts would be a different set of parts due to the reluctor ring on the spindles, and a possible change to the knuckle shape to mount the sensor? Essentially, would you (or not) be able to use, for example, an '87 spindle in an '85 knuckle, or an '85 spindle in an '87 knuckle? Just trying to get the details squared away in case I end up buying the parts piecemeal.

Thanks,
Mike
 
I saw some non ABS and later spindles side by side a while back and I didn't notice a significant difference and all bearing/hubs are the same for C4's. 89's had new wheels (I think). Maybe the track width changed but it had to be pretty small.

Could you shorten the axles and control rods? Might be easier than replacing the knuckles and spindles.
 
I dug up an old article about the "Big Dog" '89 C4 bigblock rear suspension modifications to put wider tires on it. They went through a lot of machining/lathe work to reduce the track width to fit 315mm wide tires on the car. The reduction was 13.8mm on each side to duplicate the '84-87 trackwidth. I understand the reasoning for doing all the work (to keep the stock '89 rotors, calipers and ABS on the car), but with my street rod I'm not locked into any particular model year components. I know the older C4 suspension is narrower (I've got 315s on my '84 with no problem), and the swap to the older knuckles is just an afternoon's worth of efforts, with no cutting and welding required. I can always sell the current setup to get my money back on the swap.
 
Wonder if any ZR1 components would be useful/and lighten your wallet even more yet....:shocking:

:beer:
 
Top