A body. I understand it should be cut/compressed a certain amt to reduce the play then the plate welded on the bottom. How tight do I want it to be? Thank you for your time.

Cut the weld on one side of the LCA bumper plate first. This will allow the LCA to close parallel.

Play around with it and you'll see how much. The t-bar socket should still rotate freely, but lose some of that slop.

Alright Jim I will do it. Thank you.

LCA plates are a waste of time.

I think the bigger gainer with the welding straps/plates or just re-welding the bump stop plate is tightening up the looseness in T-bar adjuster to the LCA frames.

"LCA plates are just as beneficial as boxing in a frame rail, or gusseting a rollbar, etc,"

Not really. You are assuming any stressed member can be made 'better' by boxing it. It only matters, in fact, if there are meaningful forces at play in the direction you are improving.

Will a plate make an LCA stiffer and less prone to flexing? Yes, mostly in the torsional direction. Unfortunately, LCA see very little torsional force. In the direction they see force - the vertical bending plane - they are quite strong by design.

I'd also be willing to bet all the tubular upper control arms that are the rage are not as strong in all the right directions as a factory arm. If you look at a factory arm it is actually a very 'scienced out' piece that few guys could make in their garage or shop. But that's another topic!