So.... I have updates but not much advancement. I am getting much better @ the 2-steps forward, 1-step back thing though
I pulled the Pass side apart to prep the brackets for welding & got them tacked together. At that point I decided to go ahead & weld the inner portion of the vertical/horizontal attachment points of the bracket base. I pulled the tacked bracket off & in-turn tacked that to a steel platform set-up so things wouldn't move w/the heat.
Due to the vertical portion of the brackets reducing height (it's taller @ the front of the a-arm vs. @ the rear), I had to spacing things to keep everything as aligned as possible. I welded short-ish sections (2-3") & waited for each section to cool to the touch to keep things from wanting to move around.
I cleaned up & put the bracket back in place. All good.
Test fit the horizontal hardware. It fit like before.
Slapped on the hardware & cinched it up. Then I went to slide the upper arm shaft studs through & it was a no go. It seems I made my template for locating & drilling the holes w/the pieces just sitting in place vs. locked-in. This required going back through & clearancing the holes slightly.
I continued ahead on that side & worked toward minimizing the footprint of the lower brackets base plate. The idea was to utilize the existing hole (for securing the lower end of a bag) & add two more so they're in a pyramid arrangement. Because of the arms shape & the location of the C/O's center-line, that base plate is an odd shape. It took a couple of in/out, in/out maneuvers trimming away each time. Once that was finalized, the plate & the arm got reference marks to easily align until the other holes were drilled.
This is where I swapped in the temporary C/O jig to align the top & bottom mounts. I got things together w/o much fuss & was happy so I tacked the upper/lower shock mounts in place onto the base plates. I then went to remove the hardware so I could plot out the additional holes on the bottom plate & found ANOTHER issue. It seems I had not attempted to remove/install the hardware w/the new & different lower arms. The hardware would not clear the tube portion of the new arms
PIC1 = Original RideTech bracket/s used for the lower mount
PIC2 = Tweaked bracket on the lower base-plate
PIC3 = Dimension of the flat portion of the a-arm & top of the tube (RideTech arm)
PIC4 = Dimension of the flat portion of the a-arm & top of the tube (Porterbuilt narrowed arm)