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Mustang II stock front to tubular
I'm working on a Street Beast kit for a guy and he wanted me to rebuild the front suspension. I suggested rather than new bushings and ball joints to replace the stock parts with a tubular setup. Anyway I'm looking for a little bit of info from hopefully someone that's installed something similar. The lower control arms we bought come with 2 spacers, one spacer goes in the cross member where the old control arm was and the other spacer is welded to the back side of the cross member and gusseted. My problem is the spacer on the back side seems too long when you add in the thickness of the cross member.
Here's what I have... http://www.jegs.com/InstallationInst.../555-64560.pdf You can see how there is not much if any room left between the bushings for the cross member thickness. The instructions don't say anything about having to cut the spacer to fit so does it matter if the inside part of the bushings are crushed? If that's the way it should be is there any tricks to getting them on because it's going to be very tight! Thanks, Klay |
You won't crush that bushing. If you have to tap it in or open the tabs a little due to being squeezed together. That strut rod eliminator is a good set up. Heidts use the same thing and they may have some tips for you. http://www.heidts.com/_uploaded_files/in-103.pdf
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Do you have the spacers orientated correctly?? outside one should be the short one--the longer one goes inside the x member--if so, you may need to shorten the outside one a bit--thats what is meant by fabrication,, files, lots of files, grinders, hack saws-----
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I may be wrong but. It would seem to me if you could remake those two pieces into one long piece. Open up the rear hole to slid the spacer through and then weld and gusset at the rear and front. You would have a stronger method.
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Back when building my car had the frame clearanced for belly exhaust at the same time set it up for the control arm front suspension,with custom made A-Arms much like the Jegs units only difference was mine were built for coil overs.Once yours is welded up you may still have to tweak spacers or washers to get the correct fit.Part of the fun of owning these cars.
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Ralphy, I had thought about doing a one piece tube a while back because my thinking was the same that it would be much stronger. But after seeing how common the 2 piece setups are I decided not to go that route.
So, I got home this afternoon to try the long tube in the cross member and it will not go with out really spreading the opening out. The long tube is 3-5/8" long and the short one is 3-7/16" long. I measured the opening on the cross member close to where it welds to the frame so I know it's not pinched up there and it's dead on 3-1/2". So I may be back to going with a 1 piece tube again. |
I talked with a rep at Heidts once. He was of the opinion you could not do this conversion on a factory cross-member. However searching the internet the LCA was originally built for the factory setup. Go figure, so many aftermarket kits. Some in sales don't even know the evolution of the MII front end. The spacers you have probably fit a specific cross-member. They more than likely are not all the same width. Does Jegs sell the X member also?
I bought a MII kit new/used for $225.00. Never installed it yet, I do not know who made it. I got the UCA, LCA, coilover and spring. The LCA has the coilover mount app. 1" above the LCA centerline. I may need to redo and lower the shock mount. Also the LCA has a plate welded into the center for strength. I would need to punch a hole thru for the coilover. Plus I think I could punch a few more thru for weight removal. I have seen enough made without this plate. The pdf file shows a factory style spring, is this what you have? |
Yeah, it's just like the picture, we're going back with the factory spring.
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With the motor set back as far as it is. Your going to need to run some light springs, I would think. My factory springs had to have a coil cut out. Coilovers make it way simpler. Removing a coil is a SOP with this conversion.
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I basically chopped the whole upper coil spring mount off and made an upper mount for a coilover. It looked a lot nicer and gave me a lot more options. I was also able to use shorter arms for a wider front tire.
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