Can anyone tell me if you can use a steel control arm in place of aluminum? Dimensions appear to be the same but not sure if there is a real reason and no one local has the aluminum, only steel.
I had the exact same question that no one could answer. However what I found is that dimensionaly they may be the same but I was never able to confirm.
From what I understood GM used the aluminum arms simply due to weight and fuel mileage on certain packages. I would imagine they are the same size because they are used on so many of the same type of vehicle and it appears its sometimes randowm what GM vehicle they put the steel vs aluminum arms on.
This is one thing I found in my search a while back was a quote from a vendor on their leveling kit:
If you have the Aluminum arms they will be the silver aluminum color. They will be black if not aluminum......The only difference in the kits are the bolts are a tad longer for the thicker aluminum models
Someone else also said this after contacting a leveling kit manufacturer who wanted to know what controls arms they had:
The difference between the two kits is 1/8" longer in the bolts
So it seems two different manufacturers said basically the same thing. The only difference is in the lengths of the bolts needed.
