The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Mustang II (How not to)

As many of you know i've had my fair share of handling woes.
Here's my stock Mustang lower arm inner urethane bushes after less than 1000 miles....

It turns out the lower arms were twisting as the suspension travelled due to wrongly placed strut rods,causing massive toe-in/out changes.
The strut rod bushes were toast too.

Lesson learned as I now have proper tubular triangulated arms and i'm pleased to say the truck's now a pleasure to drive.

I bet that was a handful going down the road. We have all been there on one aspect or another, you don't pull off that many changes to a 60+ year old truck without going back to the drawing board a couple times.

I went through your photo album and I give you top props friend for all your hard work and dedication and love and money put into your truck. I bet you get some looks when you take her out and around town.
Well done.
Steve

John thanks for sharing. Any chance you snagged a photo of strut rods before and after.

Thanks for the kind words Steve,to be honest the first time I drove it,I couldn't believe how bad it was,in fact not just bad,dangerous.
That combined with a ropey rear 4-link it would only have been a matter of time before I killed someone or myself.
It wasn't so much bad parts as bad installation.

I would have happily sold it there and then,talk about taking the wind out your sails!

But....Once again thanks to the technical support and sourcing of the correct parts from my fellow bolters to rectify the problems it's now a much more pleasant and safer experience,so much so it just clicked past 1200 miles today.
It's been a hard slog but on a day like today, 70 degrees and brilliant sunshine,it's funny how these set backs are soon forgotten....

Sorry Allen,no more pictures other than the ones in my Flickr page.
Like I mentioned to Steve it wasn't so much bad parts but the installation was all wrong.

The strut rods when used in these trucks are reversed from how they would be on a Mustang,the main issue was they were not installed parallel with the arms at ride height causing the massive toe changes. 3/4" at least!

I rectified the problem by removing the stock Mustang arms altogether and installing tubular arms from Speedway which do not require the strut rods.
The difference is immense.

Poorly engineered and/or installed suspension parts are a disaster waiting to happen! Kudos to you for having the perseverance to hang in there and do things right! Back when I was teaching high school auto mechanics, the kids were all suspension "experts" after reading a few magazine articles. It took a lot of education about proper geometry and the physics of automotive suspension and steering before they got to do anything other than replace standard parts. I didn't mind helping them, but the motto was "It's gonna steer and stop right before we talk about any 'go-fast' stuff!"
Jerry

What's scary is that there are a lot of people who sell their mustang 2 suspension/Truck with these problems and don't think twice about it. Maybe they sold it because they didn't like how it steers. So, very nice that you took responsibility.