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Front suspension swaps?

E

EriktheAwful

Donation Time
I feel like a champion. I got my bearing races in today, knocked out the stock '87 Mustang inner race, and installed the L68116 bearing race. The rotor is now a bolt-on '78 Mustang II 11" 4-lug rotor. Feel free to apply this to any Mustang II suspensioned 4x4.25 lug car you wish.
 
260Alpine

260Alpine

Silver Level Sponsor
Erik, One other thing, The GM Metric caliper bracket for the Mustang II spindle is designed for the 11" Granada rotor offset. There is .4 difference there. Just enough room for my idea of a adapter from the Metric bracket to the Nissan D21 V6 4x4 caliper. Exact measurements, Granada Rotor diam. 11.03, height 4.16. Your Mustang rotor diam. 10.91, height 3.75. Difference in height .41.
 
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260Alpine

260Alpine

Silver Level Sponsor
Erik, I think you have a good idea there. The Mustang II would need the ball joint plate for K6024 ball joint. The taper is 1.5/7 degree. The GM ball joint(K5208) is 2.0/10 degree. With the GM one you would need to ream the spindle to fit.
 
E

EriktheAwful

Donation Time
Yeah, the ball-joints look to be the next big headache. Right now my issue is the MII inner bearing has a 1.380 inside diameter and the aftermarket MII spindles were machined with a 1.380 diameter. There's no clearance! I have a machinist friend who is willing to turn the spindles a hair, so I should be past that next weekend.

I got a set of GM ball-joints and the ball-joint mounting plates and the ball joints are too small for the spindle. My circle track friend is recommending Chrysler-style screw in ball-joints, but that will take a little more time and fabrication.
 
260Alpine

260Alpine

Silver Level Sponsor
Erik, You could also just buy the Mustang II stock bolt in ball joints and make your own plates.
 
P

PROCRAFT

Donation Time
suspension

Why don't you just use the screw in ball joints from Moog you can buy the sockets from Speedway Motors the Mutt ball joints are the same top and bottom, then you can either use the Mutt spindles or ream the stock ones for the Mutt joint,as Chuck has said many times, the reamer is also available from Speedway saves a lot of f@&!ng around with plates and such, but then again we just built our own crossmember for our Tiger! if you decide to go this route the sockets should be placed at 10deg from the flat.
 
E

EriktheAwful

Donation Time
I saw the screw-in ball joint sleeves, and that's what I'm planning. My friend has the reamer if we need to use it. To be honest, I'd rather use the screw-ins than the bolt-ins.
 
E

EriktheAwful

Donation Time
I got the spindles back yesterday and trial fitted the brake parts (except the pads - I haven't bought them yet). The caliper brackets are made for circle track cars with 10* cambered spindles. Grinding down the mounting post levels them out for stock spindles. After grinding I bolted on the GM calipers in place and they fit very nicely! If I have time this weekend (it's a work weekend) I'll grind down the other side, order some performance pads, and start working on finding a ball joint solution.

BTW, how do you get the cross shafts out of the control arms on a SII?
 
260Alpine

260Alpine

Silver Level Sponsor
Eric, The screw in Chrysler balljoint is what most aftermarket Mustang II suspensions use. The grinding of the caliper mounts center the caliper perfectly without shims or washers? When you get your pads, apply air to the bleeder and see if they are still centered on the rotor. Pictures?
 
E

EriktheAwful

Donation Time
Hit a snag. When I greased the bearings, put the hubs on, and put the spindle nut in place I still have about 1/4" of play. The outer wheel bearing hits where the spindle widens between the bearings. Apparently the bearing spacing is about 1/4" closer on the later Mustangs. My machinist friend is moving to Alaska, so I really don't want to bother him with it. This may take a little while for me to get around. I will try and post some pics soon.
 
C

Chuck Ingram

Donation Time
If you just want the MuttII spindles why all the problems
A good machine shop will redrill the spindles. Then the Sunbeam ball joints and tie rods will fit. If you don't drill for the tie rods the Mutt II tie rod ends will fit the tie rods
 
260Alpine

260Alpine

Silver Level Sponsor
Chuck, I agree if he had the later A arms. Erik is trying to convert the early kingpin A arms to balljoints.
 
E

EriktheAwful

Donation Time
Sorry; I've been away for a while. It got hot here and I slowed down working on my Alpine lately. 260Alpine is right, I have early a-arms and am trying to put Mustang II spindles on them. At this point I think my best bet is to have the spindles machined so the outer bearings can seat all the way into their races.

I'm still wondering how to get the cross-shafts out of the a-arms. I know I'll need to replace the control arm bushings at some point. When I turned the cross-shaft it seemed to screw out of one bushing and into the other. Anybody have any intel on this?
 
R

RootesRacer

Donation Time
EriktheAwful said:
I'm still wondering how to get the cross-shafts out of the a-arms. I know I'll need to replace the control arm bushings at some point. When I turned the cross-shaft it seemed to screw out of one bushing and into the other. Anybody have any intel on this?
Click to expand...

Yes, SI to SIII uses solid metal on metal control arm bushes.
They thread onto the control arm pins, they rotate on the threads as the suspension articulates. You have to press them out of the control arm while supporting both joint locations to prevent bending the control arm up.
 
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E

EriktheAwful

Donation Time
Ugh. I got 'em out, but one of the upper arms bottomed out in the big socket I was using and I tweaked the cross shaft bad. I've been looking for aftermarket cross shafts with 2 7/8" bolt spacing, but I think I'm down to two options: buying a stock upper cross shaft and trying to match it to some control arms built from circle track parts, or replacing the entire crossmember with a Mustang II crossmember and buying some ready-to-bolt-in control arms.

I'd been working with a machinist at work to see about machining back the spindle so I could use the 5.0 brake rotors, but he wasn't able to get it done, and I finally broke down and bought a set of Granada rotors, which are five lug. Now I'll be looking for a Ford 8.8 with five lugs and disc brakes. This also means I'll have to give up on using the 5.0 turbine wheels I got for free, but the Alpine will probably be able to run my '06 Mustang wheels that are already shod with shaved RE-11s for autocrossing.
 
E

EriktheAwful

Donation Time
I finally got a new cross shaft and journeyed over to the nearest Smiley's Racing to try out circle track parts. I took measurements of the stock control arms and the Mustang II spindles a while back and figured that I needed upper arms that measured 7" shaft to ball joint and lower arms that measured 13.5" and 14.25".

The threads on the upper shafts are 5/8", and the heim joints I bought have a 5/8" bolt hole. I didn't realize the lower shafts are 11/16", and I haven't seen heim joints with a 11/16" bolt hole. I can get heims with a 3/4" hole, but I'll have to find a way to shim them. Plus I'll have to invent a way to mount a shock. More to come on the lower links.

The upper links are so short the swedged tubing hits the shock tower. I haven't decided if I'm cutting back the shock tower or getting tubing that I can bend and weld nuts to. I think the latter choice is the best. The heim joints are already nearly in bind to hit the ball joint cup, so I'm not inclined to double up on redneckery.

Pics forthcoming.
 
E

EriktheAwful

Donation Time
Just a quick update.

I got the upper A-arms sorted with some wider-angle ball joint holders. The heims are no longer near bind and they clear the shock mount. The only issue now is the lack of thread available for bolting the heims in place.

I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out mounting for lower A-arms and shock mounting. The first issue was how to get A-arms onto the thicker lower cross-shaft. I couldn't find any heims available in that diameter. I considered generic cross-shafts, but the weird Sunbeam mounting meant I would likely need custom machined cross shafts. Then it dawned on me I can build a bracket that will bolt in place of the cross shaft to hold a cross-bolt, allowing me to use narrow Mustang II lower arms. This will require using tension rods, but I figure that's a small price to pay. I'll gusset and weld the cross-bolt bracket in place because those four flimsy bolts scare me, especially since the cross-bolt will move the fulcrum out from the frame a little. I'm also going to have to be careful where the tension rods mount to avoid putting the suspension into bind during compression.

Finally, I picked up a Ford Explorer 8.8 today to solve all the rear suspension problems in one go. Brakes big enough to pair with the 11" front rotors? Check. Get rid of the need to find a hardened woodruff key? Check. Eliminate finding hard-to-find Girling calipers? Check. Limited slip? Check. Just need to get another right-side axle. Pull-A-Part was closing, so I didn't have a chance today. According to everything I've found so far, a C3 Corvette master cylinder has the correct size bore for the metric GM/Explorer caliper combination. The lines exit on the driver's side of the cylinder, but I will have to drill new horizontal mounting holes in the firewall.

Unfortunately this will have to take a back seat to:
Getting my Suburban running again (re-installing the engine)
Getting the Cadillac engine into my Jaguar (reshape and reweld the oil pan)
Renovating my kitchen

The next update may be a while.

Also, my spreadsheet says that when I'm done I'll have less than $1K in the suspension. :D
 
E

EriktheAwful

Donation Time
The axle tag says it's an S613B, and that it's a 3.73 ratio with limited slip. I double checked it against the interwebs and the info matches. I would rather have a 4.10, but the 3.73 will work fine. With the factory RX-7 3.909 gear my 12A halfbridge would hit 9000rpm in first just about as fast as I could shift it and 80mph was 4000rpm. The tires I'll be running aren't much taller.

http://www.fordification.com/tech/rearends_ford13.htm
 
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