I have it installed in my car. Atleast from looking at the car right now, the tires are back up to being straight up and down. Below is a list of what I did and what I bought. As long as the bolts play nice, you can do this upgrade in a matter of 30-60 minutes. The bolts start fighting you, well, plan on it taking longer.


This is what the factory arm looks like. As you can see, nothing really special about it. A basic bar with rubber grommets on each end.


The new arm next to the factory arm. The shape is a little different, but the lengths are almost identical as it comes straight out of the box (more on this later, do not install it quite yet).


A better shot of what the two arms look like side by side. YES!!!!! Both arms are orientated the same way. Like I was mentioning, the shape of the Volvo arm is slightly different than the Jaguar arm. But, it works!!!!!!! Just for reference, the new arm is from an 03 Volvo S40/V60. I got mine through E-bay for $112.50 delivered to my house. As you can see, the newer arm is much beefier than the factory Jaguar arm.


This is with the new arm installed. After this, I installed the tire and lowered the car back down before doing the other side. I wanted to see how the tire sat. Unfortunately, with everything as small as it will go, the tire still leaned out on the top. BUT!!!!! There is a fix. Read on. I know what you are thinking, that loop is going to hit the CV axle. It is just the angle of the picture. See the next picture. It is all good.


For those worried about the larger loop of the Volvo arm, this image shows that while it comes close, it will miss the CV axle.


This picture shows what was done to make the arm work and make the tire sit straight up. All you have to do is remove the adjustable mount and remove the locking nut and then screw it back into the arm. The adjuster is locked down using the allen bolt that you see on the bottom of the arm. So, make sure that bolt is nice and tight. If you want a little bit more adjustability, you can shave off a 1/4" from the removable mount threaded area. This will allow it to seat further into the arm and actually give you the ability for probably about -1 degree of camber should you need it. You can probably get about +10 degrees of camber from this arm (ie, top of the tire leaning out more than the bottom).



Side shot of the arm installed with the modification done. Again, you need to make sure that the allen bolt is nice and tight. With the locking nut removed, you have removed 1 of the two methods used to lock the adjuster down. If you need a second method of locking the adjuster down, a drop or two of locking compound would do the trick. But, the adjuster is out in the open, easy for the tech doing the alignment to get at and set the camber where it should be.

Enjoy. If you have any questions, ask away. This is really a very easy thing to install and I think will make the rear suspension that much stronger because of how beefy the new arm is.

 

What is the reason that you looked for an arm other then just a replacement
Jaguar arm? Is there some other problem you were trying to fix?

Pete.

 

Awesome find! Thanks for the post and pics!

 

jagger, some members have found that installing replacement arms still left their cars with the alignment out of tolerance. In my case, for some reason, the alignment has never been able to be satisfactory even with new arms installed. So, as a means to account for component wear and whatnot, I went into searching for a "bigger, better part". Besides, this arm costs half of what you can get a factory part for, if not cheaper than that. Looking at the two side by side, the aftermarket component is also stronger. The other factory parts are going to give way before this new arm does.

 

Do you mean that the rubber bushings in your old arm were not worn out?
What could explain the misalignment? Could you have a bent frame?

Pete.

 

jagger, if the frame is bent, it has been bent for the last 5 years (as long as I have owned the car). It drives straight as an arrow. Just the rear wheels lean in a little bit. A lot of us have this issue. Hence why I was out looking for a solution. There's a few quirks like this with the X-Type. We are slowly figuring them out. Granted, the next trick is going to be either making some custom tail lights or getting my hands on a spare transfer case, rebuilding it with the proper shimming for the bearings and then seeing what the new case can take. He he he he he.

 

How did you ever twig that the Volvo arm would fit?

 

I dont understand why you would need that top arm to sort out alignment/camber as the alignment/camber angles are set on the spring pan where it gets bolted to the subframe.

 

Thermo the arm can adjust the camber angles ? My rear driver tire is leaning outwards this way \_\ recently change both wishbones and the angle look a little better but Not quite right, I check upper control arm but it look good for me lower pan and knuckle bushings look good too and frame dont look bent WTF! Someone with this problem before?

 

Plums, using a Volvo part is actually rather intuitive as Volvo is part of the Ford family and therefore the ability to share parts is there. It was just a matter of finding the same size vehicle and doing a little bit of research.

Jagryan, unless I missed something on my car, in the US, the rear of the car only has 1 adjustment and that is on the lower, rear arm. This only affects caster of the rear tires (ie, whether the tires point straight forward, towards the center of the car, or towards the outside of the car). Some say that you can unbolt/loosen the rear subframe and then slide that side to side if you find that one of your tires is leaning in and one is leaning out. But, I have found a number of us have both tires leaning in. Not sure why.

kalacho, like I mention in the above paragraph, in your case, it sounds like you need to have your rear subframe tweaked a little bit and get it centered back under the car. IT is possible at some time your car took a hit and it threw things out. Could be just that the bolts are just a little bit loose and the subframe slid some. I would go after this first before doing the upper arm replacement like this post is about.

 

The adjustment on the lower arm is for toe-in not camber. It does have a small effect on camber but will not deal with large adjustments. There is a second lower link and it is not adjustable so once again no. The camber is there for handling (ever noted the camber on the front wheels of F1 cars) but the cost is tire wear. The reason the links are interchangeable is when V40's and X Types were designed they were all owned by Ford. It was just a common platform; I have a C30 and X Type and the suspensions are very similar.

Thermo, can you give us more detail were you got these on ebay? A link perhaps?

 

The problem with eBay links is that they exire about 90 days after ending...

Focus Mazda 3 5 S40 V50 Two Rear Upper Control Arm Adjustable New | eBay

 

Has anyone tried a second way to reduce rear camber? Let's assume that all your link bushings are fine, don't do what I'm suggesting if you have worn out parts. That said, you can put two washers (spacers) under the upper two hub mount bolts. If the upper and lower hub bolts are about 4" apart my calculation is that a 1/8" washer will reduce camber by .5 degrees. If this works it's the $ .50 solution.

 

Tony, the problem with your idea is that the hub is machined into the spindle as I recall. So, any sort of angle you try to get from the hub alone is going to result in the hub not being able to be set all the way into the spindle. Granted, I think that would also open up the bearing to a lot of water intrusion. Nice idea, but not practical with how our cars are constructed.

 

I haven't done this so you may be right. Not sure what you mean by spindle? Also, the bearings are integral to the hubs (hub assembly) so I don't see what you mean by water intrusion.

I'm trying to post a picture of what I mean.

 

Tony, #7 in your drawing is what I would call a spindle. Also keep in mind that the hole that the bearing sits in is machined fairly close to the size of the hub as the hub transfers the weight of the car here, not through the bolts. The bolts are there just to prevent twisting the hub out of the spindle assembly on corners. You add washers and you may be reducing the amount of surface area that the hub uses to transfer the weight of the car on. Can lead to other issues.

You are probably right on the water intrusion. I need to spend more time looking at how the rear axle mounts to the spindle assembly. I was picturing something more like what my Expedition has where the hub sits inside of a complete cup with an inch of material all the way around the hub to transfer the weight on and a seal on the backside to keep water from entering from the backside of the hub (where the cv axle meets the hub).

 

Thermo, I would call #7 a trailing arm, but Jaguar calls it a tie blade. Another Jaguar source calls it a wheel knuckle.

 

Tony, as long as we are all talking the same thing, who cares what we call it. We could call it a bamboo shoot. I can see someone trying it. What is the worst thing that they will figure out, it doesn't work? Have to try at a minimum. That is how I figured out the arm I used.

 

I can tell you, I just replaced both sides lower arms on my 04 sport. checked the top arms that you are replacing and they were tight. pressed out and replaced the bushings on the trailing arm , and both rear hubs. Took it in for alignment. It was -1.3 deg on the left side and -1.5 on the right which is just out of specs. The only other fix is springs. As the spings lose right height due to age this increases the camber. But this is a nice fix that make is adjustable anytime.

That being said you don't say if you have a sport or not. Mine is and I wonder if the sport with shorter spings should have a different arm to adjust for this. I think all the other rear parts are the same as the standard model. Would love to hear what your angle is at now. Are you going to have it alligned / checked?

I always think it is cheap that they design a performance/luxury car and don't make every measurement adjustable. I feel the same about non serviceable ball joints. Save a buck now and cost the owner many bucks later when he comes back to fix it.

 

First off... Brilliant Idea!

I looked on Rockauto and found the 2005 Volvo S40 has the MOOG Part K100002, which they call a "problem solver" control arm
With this in mind what is the likelyhood of a factory adjustable control arm? There are several Pull a Part Breakers Yards in NC that my son & I frequent, less expensive than even ebay...
I also came across this 2005 Volvo S40 RAYBESTOS Part 6161041 rear camber 1 degree bolt, any idea if this would also fit the bill

I installed H&R lowering springs on my standard model 2002 X-Type and the rear camber is out a bit (-2.3 LR, -2.0 RR) so this adjustable control arm seems just the ticket
HTHs
Gary