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Gearhead, the '701/2-81 F body front suspension is one of the best designed assemblies ever. It WILL handle better than a Mustang II. And depending on the Mustang II used, as I said, some are JUNK, you should see a difference. But narrowing it could change all that. I installed mine as it was on the car, set up with the ride height exactly the same as it was on the Camaro, front and rear. But it is UGLY and it takes much more skills to do it. Many people can, but with todays kits, why bother.

As for the slip joint on the rack....that is the hackest, joke of a way to do it, I jsut can't believe it. I have seen that and that is the WRONG way I was talking about. Why do you think NO manufacture has ever done anything like that? You can't have two pieces of raw iron rubbing against one an other! That "slip joint" was designed for a collapsible steering column, not a continuously moving part! That is totally irresponsible to build something like that.

That is the very reason why people should be using the tried and true kits with detailed instructions for instalation. I am not saying that the kits (of any kind, for any application) are always right, we have discussed that point. But when you have guys THINKING that they have the smarts to design a part that keeps the dang vehicle from running into my family, that burns me up. It's like the guys who make shock mounts thinking "they don't hold the car up, so they don't need to be very strong" not understanding the + & - forces imposed tens of thousands of times a minute. Or the guy who makes motor mounts like all they do is hold up the motor, not thinking about the torque the motor will apply to it. Regarding the STEERING and BRAKING of the car/truck he should leave the thing ALONE!!!

Your last paragraph makes sense.......
"The main advantage to the muskrat is that the kit versions come made to fit for your particular aplication. It's trading time for money. It's also a more compact design which allows it to be used more readily in 30's, 40's vehicles"

In other words , The kits are made to fit properly. The problem is many guys not "trading their time for money" havn't the knowhow to make the thing work properly.

I've been following this thread and others on the subject with great interest. Appreciate the input all around. Just one question maybe someone can answer: Will any of the various kits out there allow me to keep the six-lugs so I won't have to pack several spares? It's just a hangup I have, but would like to keep the stock wheel/tire/hubcaps all around. The other extreme would have Dodge Dart hubs with left hand and right hand lugnuts so it seems. :confused:

MartinSr, Splashoil, Phat, et al

Not sure what the present availability of 20 year old camaro/bird clips are in good shape, but the last time I wandered the junk yards, there are still a few around- or you could spring for $500 and get the whole car with a blown motor or tranny. I know of at least 3 decent looking birds within a 10 mile radius of home for sale in peoples yards.

If you are cash strapped and decent with a welder and torch, this is still a viable way to go. It does look ugly if you don't plan it and box it nice a pretty, even then it still doesn't look as clean as a stang design, but looks aside, the GM clips do handle well and don't need to cost a fortune - after futzing with it trading parts and buying new rotors/calipers, etc I think if you did it smart, you could be done for under $500 - $600 and two weekends of cutting and welding. The inner aprons lower edges will need to be trimmed and rolled to clear the A-Frames, you will have a nice cradle to set the V8 on and monstrous disk brakes and gobs of suspension as well as the ability to put a huge anti-sway bar on from a Formula 400 TA. Front radiator support shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours to do and if you do it right you can hang the front bumper brackets at the same time using the same structure. I managed to do this in a single weekend. Lots of naysayers were telling me I was ruining the truck and that it would never work . . . just the motivation I needed to get it done. I was into it for less than $300 and it aligned fine and drove great without any weirdness in tire wear or bump steer. Felt kinda floaty when in triple digits . . . but what 50 year old truck wouldn't at those speeds!

Personally, I am probably going to stick with a straight axel with monoleaf with the burb rod, 292 w/decent 200R auto and 4.11 gears. Put a dual master under the floor and see if I can rig the tranny shift linkage to a stock 3-on-the-tree shifter. With GMC oil guage and a set of decals - should look almost stock from where I'll be sitting.

Splashoil, you are a guy a lot like myself and you will find that NO ONE drums to the same beat as you. If there is room on the particular rotors you choose in one of these front swaps you can simply have it drilled to 6 lug. The next thing to worry about would be if the rim clears the disc brake caliper, if you are running the stock 16" rims that shouldn't be a problem.

solowookie, yes that TCI set up would give you mounting for the power steering. There are other ways, PHAT would have to chime in to give you more info, he is the REAL fab guy here, not me.

Ken, you are very right on all accounts, why do you think I used the Camaro clip!!
But I think you need to bring it to a REAL alignment shop (not saying that you didn't) but you should be comfortable at 100 MPH in a Camaro, just as you should in your truck with a Camaro clip. If you post the print out final numbers maybe we can help. It maybe other factors but we could start there.

As for your straight axle 292 powered truck....I LOVE IT!

MartinSr,

That truck is long gone . . . fastest speed through the trap was right at 124 at 3/8 mile - pretty scary trying to get it slowed down before the turn at the end of the run! Boy was that a fun truck to take to the drags. I built it in 83..85 before smallblocks with T400s were as common as they are now.

It felt floaty on old back roads with dips and stuff - lots of sparks off of the bottom of the header flanges, on the strip it was solid as a rock with 300 pounds up against the tailgate

LOL Ken, you brought back some great memories for me. I never had anything that fast but my truck did turn 14.68 @ 95 MPH at good old Fremont Drag Strip (RIP). It had two turn outs at the end of the track. I could barely take the second one! That old truck handled so bad I had to take the turnout the 250 MPH fuelers took! LOL Boy was it fun though!

Martinsr,
If you read my previous post, I said I wasn't in favor of the slip joint setup, I was merely giving Joe H a real answer as yours didn't make any sence.

Since you don't know me or what my abilities are, I will assume the rest of that tiraide was directed elsewhere.

Lastly, for arguments sake, the concept of using a slip joint for the steering link is completely viable when using the correct components, what do you think a DRIVESHAFT is? AND as I said before the calapsable GM shaft is not appropriate.

You are very right, my "tiraide" was not at you, in fact you never said you did that but have only seen it.

Lastly, for arguments sake, the concept of using a slip joint for the steering link is completely viable when using the correct components, what do you think a DRIVESHAFT is? AND as I said before the calapsable GM shaft is not appropriate.[/QUOTE]

You are wrong there, a drive shaft yoke is lubricated, and is made of hardened steel. It is NOT a GM slip joint for a collapsable steering column. I never said that with a properly made slip joint it would still be hack. Though I still would argue that it would be a very poor choice to mount a rack to an I beam axle. It makes no sense what so ever. NO MANUFACTURE ever did it for a reason. It is just wrong, period.

"Somethings are opinion, somethings just plain wrong"

As I said before, with the proper materials the concept is still sound. If you look at a 2 piece driveshaft like on a long box S10, the joint is not inside the tranny, its only lubrication is by 1 little 'ol grease zerk. If it will work for this application it would certainly work on a steering shaft.

As for "nobody makes it", that's a desperately lame excuse. Everybody here who does there own work could come up with at least a dozen parts/tools that they wish somebody would make. The fact nobody does it is usually a sign that it's felt they can't sell enough of them to make it profitable. I'd bet that at any major rod run, if you polled the people there, you would find 80-90 percent of them have never even heard of this setup. Also, it would be very dificult to make such a setup that would work for a majoity of applications because of the differences in columns, engines, exhaust, etc.. Also there is no overriding need for this setup as there aren't any design situations that I've seen where this was the only method that would work. Vega cross steering and the **** box steering the left side will usually do the trick. The only reason I know for the guys doing this setup was a personnal desire to simplify the engine compartment as it made it easier to route the exhaust and place the motor mounts for their situation.

opinions based on physical evidence are called facts.

gearhead, we will just have to agree to disagree. That's my opinion,