It took me almost three weeks to decide what I wanted to do with my front suspension after the inspection guy told me my LCA bushings and idler arm was shot. So first thing was first and that was to set my budget, my budget for the front end was 650.00 and I wanted the best I could get. After a gazillion posts and hours of reading threads I came up with my plan. Roller UCA’s, roller LCA’s, Roller perches, new strut rod bushings, new idler arm, the Shelby 1” drop, baer tracker bump steer kit, and whatever else I remember as I go along here. As always safety is the name of the game, with the front end jacked up and secured with stands I began my teardown:
She came apart pretty darn easy. I did need a pipe for those tight LCA bolts though. It was a lot easier to remove the LCA’s when I took off the cross brace underneath, and since I planned to fabricate my own I didn’t think twice about removing it. A BFH is your best friend, when it comes time to remove ball joints and tie rod ends a couple smacks on the spindle area outside the tapered pin and they fell apart.
I found it easier to do the tie rod ends first this way you can move the spindle around to beat the ball joints. Once the spindle and brake rotor have been removed (as an assm) there’s plenty of room to remove control arms. There really isn’t a set way to remove everything and I’m skipping a bunch of steps but most should be able to get the idea. I’m not an expert either so anybody can do this. I will still highlight the important things as I go along. Now once everything is removed it is time for fabrication. Since OTR’s roller arms are super expensive I decided to weld up everything myself and it saved me a ton of cabbage. I did have to order John’s roller upper kit and roller lower kit. Now you can get the lower kit with or without the boxing material which is what I did. Being a machinist I had tons a scrap material lying around that I was able to box my lowers with. Another issue was ball joints, I debated on buying new lower arms from moog or to order the AFCO ball joints with weld in sleeves. I also debated on moog upper joints or M-N joints from NPD. I ended up ordering the afco joints for my lowers with the sleeves. And the NPD joints for the upper arms. I also ordered Midolene strut rod bushings and a new idler arm bushing while I was ordering from NPD. Here is a picture of the AFCO lower ball joint:
Here the piece is screwed in with the welded sleeve. To disassemble the arms I used a couple different tools, first I had to drill the mounting studs out to be able to remove the old ball joint, and the upper arms were a lot easier then the lower arms here. The lower arms required me to drill out spot welds for the tab that gets bolted thru to the strut rod. In the above picture you can see I used a sanding disc to clear crap off the arm so I could see the spot welds then drilled and filled with weld once cleaned.
The new AFCO sleeves almost slid right in without any material removal. One arm needed a little fitment clearance with a sanding disc from my dremmel and it was good to go. The upper arm ball joint once all four studs were drilled out the thing fell right off, I was even lucky that one joint had been replaced once before. I still installed a new M-N ball joint though. Now the body mounting location for the LCA needed to be cut out. The picture below shows me in the process of welding on the sleeve, when you weld these in, make sure you REMOVE the bearings and anything else that might go inside as you weld the metal characteristics change and you won’t be able to get the new bearing out or in. the best way to remove the old sleeve was to use a hole saw.
I welded solid washers onto each end that I made at work this way the saw would drill the pilot hole and then continue into the arm itself. I all ready had the hole saw kit which can be bought in 1/8” increments so you should be able to find your needed size. I did burn through one cheapy sears saw so I replaced it with a Milwaukee blade and that sucker cut like a knife thru butter. Measure the size of the sleeves to get the right cutters. For the lower arm I used a 1 1/2” blade and for the upper arm I used a 2” blade. This way you don’t have to worry about opening up the holes to find a good fit and it saves you A LOT of time. While drilling it helps to have a vise but all I used was my foot and ground with my corded drill. After the lower sleeves were welded in I cut material to box them which is the next picture. I used some steel that was about .080 thick.
I didn’t want to totally cover the bottom this way I could have access to the strut rod nuts. For my application of a superb handling street car this should work just fine. For more info on roller LCA’s take a look at John’s tech article
http://www.fordmuscle.com/archives/2...Arms/index.php
While there he also has a good article on making roller perches which I won’t talk about in this article. As for the upper arms, follow the same steps to remove the ball joint, but now the hard part is drilling out the threaded hole for the old mount. First you need to remove that old mount and if yours are like mine I HAD to use a vise supplied from my firehouse and a 1.25” wrench, actually two 1.25” wrenches b/c I used the second as an extension. This broke the ends loose and I unscrewed them with the shaft then falling out.
I felt that boxing my UCA’s would be a waste, now If I was going to SAAC events every weekend then maybe I would’ve but now is not the time. Ok so drilling the hole, like I used for my lowers I welded on solid washers with no holes so I could start my own pilot hole. Just be careful b/c I know some arms are angled inside the flanged piece, you r goal is to make sure that both holes are inline so make a couple measurements before you drill just to be gooooooood!. The best way I found to install the UCA sleeves was to actually install the entire rotating portion of this unit. So the bearings, nuts, sleeves everything. Once tight you can move the assm and make sure it is centered and has proper orientation. Do a couple quicky tach welds and then remove the nuts and bearings and shafts, do not go crazy with welding or the bearings WILL NOT come out, then finish welding the UCA sleeves in once all internal guts have been removed.
As I said above I am not going into detail on how to roller the perches, however I used the daze kit that did not have the tubing cleaned out to save money. After trying to install this kit on my car I realized I hated it. The exhaust tubing would have to be pushed in so you can make room for the shock nuts, if you’re looking for cheap then you get what you pay for in this aspect. I am not trying to down the product but for a couple extra bills I would have much rather went with a set having a machined sleeve, which is sold by a FM member on this website.
Now that everything is rollered most of the hard work is done. Shelby drop template was made out of a piece of aluminum flat stock 1" down and 1/8" back towards the rear of the car. You only need one template just flip it over as you can see in the pictures below is the driver side. I bolt it up thru the 1/2" holes using the old hardware and drill the 1/8" pilot holes. Flip it over and do the same for the passenger side.
With the drop pilot holes drilled I used a 1/2" drill bit to create the new UCA location holes. With this I used some oil in a can to lubricate the drill bit. I needed the bit to last since my drill bit sharpener was broken so keeping it cool and lubed is the only way for that. Take your time b/c with a 1/2" bit your margin for error is super small, keep the drill straight. I didn’t have to unbolt my headers at all, so depending on clearance of some headers you might have to unbolt and remove them. I’m running the Patriot Tri-Y headers.
Now that the arm drop is complete I replaced the Idler arm bushing. Since the arm was in good shape still and just the bushing was trash I had to push out the old bushing using a vise and socket at the firehouse. This is a good time to practice safety. I don’t agree my method is the best but it gets the job done and it works well. Larger socket on the outside of the bushing and a smaller diameter bushing on the inside to push the bushing into the larger socket. I installed the new bushing the same way. On my 65 with manual steering the one side of the bushing has a lip so be aware of the proper orientation that the bushing has and measure twice.
The depth also plays a part in bushing location. The best way to I found to remove the old was again using a BFH. I tapped on it a bit and then unbolted the shaft from passenger side frame rail and it came off. A little PB Blaster helped here. Install the new one as you uninstalled the old one. Just be aware that you might need to pick up a few pins if yours were all rusted out to keep the lock nut in place. It seems as though I lost all my pictures of the install so It will have to be all text from here on out until the finished product.
Before install you might want to paint the parts, at the time I did this I was on a critical deadline so I did not have time to paint everything. I coated everything in oil and installed the components, the best way for me was to do the upper arm first this way I had all the room in the world. Proper use of a spring compressor is needed here. With spring and perch compressed I installed the upper arms. Bolted them in and lowered the perch/spring and proceeded to bolt the perch to the arm. Now I worked my way down and then out.
Next came the spindle and rotor assm which was never parted to ease in clutter. I bolted the ball joint up and then bolted the lower arm to the frame first then bolted the lower ball joint to the spindle. Don’t give yourself a scare as I did when I tried to install the LCA into the tie rod locating hole. I thought I had ordered the wrong ball joints lol. Now came the strut rod, which required a little coaxing to be able to get enough thread thru the new bushings and to be able to get the new lock nuts on the threaded shaft but I did bolt the rod onto the LCA first then the lock nut on the end.
Make sure you put the back bushings on first slide the rod thru the frame support hole then bolt it to the arm or you won’t be able to get it together. With the strut rods bolted on I finished installing my Baer tracker bump steer kit. This kit replaces the outer tie rods. It allows a lowered car to have better control. The geometry of the vehicles front suspension is to low and as the vehicle drops from a bump in the road it tends to pull the toe and adjust itself. the kit lowers the pivot point of the spindle/tie rod to help stop the change in toe.
With the new tie rods bolted on and the last install bit goes for the sway bar end links. I would also like to make note I did NOT remove the sway bar, but now would be the perfect time to replace the bushings for it if not install a larger sway bar all together. I had replaced the bushings last year so I did not need to do this. With everything together and the wheels on I drove it around the block and that was it.
I went slowly and zig zagged my way down the street. Tried to loosen everything up so I could go back and retighten everything. At this point I greased everything , and adjusted my toe so I could take the car to get a front end alignment. Obviously this is how I did things, but it gives everyone a good idea on the options that are available for people on a budget. Yes I could have gone in and replaced everything under the sun, but I felt that certain parts did not have to be replaced at that very second. I am however getting ready to install new front springs and maybe new Inner tie rods.
Tie rods should not have a lot of play in them which is the best way to tell if they need replacement. They should not be easy to move, if they are then replace. You don’t have to follow my plan but as things come apart you will know what needs to be swapped out and what doesn’t. The difference is out of this world, I can grab the bumper move the car up and down and the vehicle will go back to its resting position. It will not stick in the air from the bind of the suspension, the vehicle lifts very well once I jump on it. As always this is a work in progress, fine tuning will need to be completed and a few other goodies added.
.
Re: Super Cheap Front Suspension
