Hello all, I researched the forum and was unable to come up with a definitive answer on lowering my G20 shorty with drop spindles off a C20 truck. Bel Tech says that they don't make anything and Western Chassis says that they make a 2 inch drop spindle for a C20 but nothing for a G20. I saw it was mentioned that the ball joints are different on the two examples, so I decided to go ahead and order a set from Western Chassis and see if I could make them work.
Well when they did arrive they look about the same, but the stud holes are larger on the C20 spindles than the stock ball joints on the G20. The threaded part of the ball joint shaft is physically thicker than the G20 ball joint staff. This is both on the top control arm and the lower control arm.
I presumed that you could buy a set of C20 upper and lower ball joints and have them bolt into the G20 control arms - NOT SO. (sort of)
The C20 upper ball joints will bolt in when you remove the stock G20 ball joint rivets and bolt the C20s in. Part number on the upper ball joints are a Moog K6292
After a detailed investigation I realized that YES - there is NOT a "conversion" lower ball joint that could marry the two parts together. Aside from finding anoterh set of lower controls arms I had another idea. So where to go when nothing factory will work? To the race shop, of course!
I live in the middle of NASCAR country, so there are many race shops selling new and used race parts. I toke my problem to Heinze Racing, and the guy looked at it and said "I have just the solution! There is a "racing" lower ball joint that comes with a undersized ring that the ball joint presses into. On many applications this is welded into tubular lower control arms, so it is quite common and inexpensive.
I took the lower control arm to a local fabricator for him to machine the hole to fit the ring and then tig weld it into the lower control arm.
Here are the part numbers and the prices for what I used. Also not I had the line going to the fuel tank mashed by the factory when they put the fuel tank in originally, and a replacement fuel line is "no longer available". The race shop was able to make a fresh new line with the proper O ring fitting with no problem.
On a side note - Remember what the shorty looked like when I bought it at the government auction? Well, I started buffing on that yellow paint and it is surprising what was just under the surface....