Front Suspension Work

[sandy]

Moving to suspension on the Tiger.

Pulling the old 12.19" brakes, 2" MII drop spindles and Carrera shock off. Old stuff had nice Wilwood Superlite lug mount calipers and 12.19"x1.25" rotors. With the offset the old hubs it required a wheel spacer for the caliper to clear the rim. Carerra shocks also seemed to be hacked up in an odd way, which means the lower control arm is not right. More on that later. Old spring was 250lbs.
Lastly the rubber MII rubber bushings will likely be removed and replaced with solid style.

The new...

Wilwood Forged spindles, 2" drop. Radial mount Wilwood narrow Superlite race caliper, 13.06x1.25" rotors, Afco double adjustable 37 series shocks, 500lb Eibach springs, and some nice Howe low friction ball joints.

The odd...

This is all on a Hoakenson front end, and for the bottom coil over mounting bolt he used a 9/16" bolt, drilled out the bushing on the shock for some reason. Non-standard and no idea why as most every coil over uses 1/2" mounts. Need to either find a 9/16" to 1/2" reducer bushing for the lower arm or have the mounts cut and re-welded. What a pain in the a$$. Lower bushings look odd too, need to see what's up there.
The nice is the new stuff mostly fits, larger brakes, better calipers, etc.

Still need to see what issues swapping the cross shaft and bushings.

(Picture and comments below as well)

Original Wilwood front parts I did a few years back. SL6 Narrow, Wilwood hubs, hats and rotors on a Mustang II 2" drop spindle. Rest of the suspension was part of the front end package.

New stuff, really 3rd generation. Afco double adjustable shock, Eibach 500in/Lbs spring, Wilwood 13" rotor and updated Wilwood spindle. Brake is still a Narrow Superlite but this one is set up for the Thermolock pistons for better heat rejection.

The shenanigans begin... In pulling the coil over it seems the top bolt is 1/2" and the bottom is a 9/16"???? WTF? Seems either a mistake welding on the brackets on the lower control arm or some mysterious reason for the change. In any case the lower part of the shock bushing was 'hacked' to support the 9/16" bolt. Note : Almost all coil over shocks use 1/2" bolts for the mounts, not 9/16" so will have to fix this.

Looks like a hack job to me. My guess is the lower control arm was made with the wrong sized tube mounts for the bolt and rather then do the arm over 'another solution' was found... and not a good one. I could be missing something but that's my guess.

Afco coilover and Eibach spring fits. However can't mount it with the shaft downwards facing (as desired) without some work. At this point it's fine as is.

Looking ahead it seems the stock style MII cross shafts uses a larger bolt diameter then the new ones that is used for the Delrin bushings. Not to big a deal unless it is.

Tossing on the new Wilwood "stuff" to see if anything looks like it's going to have interference or just not fit. Seems OK. With the new set up, I had to change the Hub offset so the brake caliper and rotor would align properly. In doing so it may be a win-win (other than spending more money on parts) as the rotor and caliper is moved about 0.4" inwards. This will allow me to skip wsing a 1/2" spacer like the old set up. Can still use it but now don't have to. The calipers are Superlite Narrow 6 Piston, which helps fit into rims with issues hitting the inside face.

Wheel test fit, looks good and has about 1/2" of room from the spoke to caliper. About the same as with the spacer on the old set up.

 

[Carbuilder]

Nice work on all that Sandy!

What does your anti-roll bar mount look like? This is mine:



I'm not impressed at all with this. The rod end is pulled over to the point of bending against the lower mount. It's the same on both sides. I haven't fixed it yet, but I will. I think a spacer between the mounting plates, a longer bolt, and the rod end moved to the outside of the mounts. Cantilevered on the bolt, but should be OK.

Rick

 

[sandy]

Nice work on all that Sandy!

What does your anti-roll bar mount look like? This is mine:

View attachment 20694

I'm not impressed at all with this. The rod end is pulled over to the point of bending against the lower mount. It's the same on both sides. I haven't fixed it yet, but I will. I think a spacer between the mounting plates, a longer bolt, and the rod end moved to the outside of the mounts. Cantilevered on the bolt, but should be OK.

Rick

I'll snap shot a pic. mine is different, it came with 2 rod ends and a coupler (not an adjuster). I changed out the coupler for easy adjustment, but need to still see how it will work. I think at full lock it will hit the spindle but not a problem as I think tires will hit well before that.

Sandy

 

[sandy]

Had a pic of it, if this doesn't show what you need let me know.

Sandy

 

[sandy]

Progress!!

Ordered parts from McMaster-Carr Wednesday morning parts showed up Thursday afternoon
The Stainless tubing is 9/16" Od and 1/2" Id. Cut it with a tubing cutter, cut a bit longer (big mistake) and drove it into the bolt mounting tubes. Nice tight fit, now to trim the excess...

It was a huge Pain to trim as the brackets hit all grinders I have or the disc diameter is too small for a clean grind. Did what I could with the grinder, then filed the rest.

New 1/2" Bottom bolt and the stainless tubing to be used as a sleeve

I jammed a scrap bolt into the tube and cut with a tubing cutter. The bolt was to keep the tube from getting crushed a bit as it cuts. Did work, but not all the way. Still had to jam the bolt though. Next set for the Driver side will just be cut with a cut off.

Ready to press into the lower arm.

Slid over a 1/2" bolt, and drive it in with a hammer. It was a nice tight fit

This is the side that got hammered in. Nice and flush.

These were the inner of both sides. Now I have to grind flat, but can't quite get a clean path as the grinders all hit the bracketing. Got some done with the grinder and the rest a manual file job. Other side I will just cut them a bit shorter and skip the grinding exercise.

Bottom view, correct bolt diameter, and shimmed. All good!

 

[sandy]

Wrapping up the change over with removal of the Rubber bushings. This required replacing the cross shafts to ones with smooth surfaces on each side. The stock MII cross shaft has a bunch of stuff for the rubber bushing that will not work with the Delrin bushing style. Also changed out the ball joints with some low friction Howe K772 replacements, much nicer part than the stock style ones..

Everything gets mounted up and seems to fit. Some issues on getting the sway bar re-connected due to the way the rod end is spaced in the bracket. The bracket will bend until the car has some load on the suspension. The bracket should have been wider and allowed for some spacers so the rod end can articulate at full droop when the suspension is unloaded. @Rick same problem here...

 

[sandy]

Also in fitting tires, I noticed that the tires were not as far out of the body, then realized that due to the offset change in the Wilwood hub (about .4" inwards) something was a miss. What I totally missed was the OLD calipers were NOT narrow style, but full Superlite's. The intended gain was from the offset change and the narrow caliper. So to get the wheel back to where it was, had to put back in the 1/2" spacer. If I get another front set of wheels I'll just likely change the offset a bit, but for now all good. The upside is that if I do want to switch to the wider caliper it's not a problem. Before you ask, the difference in the Narrow Superlite and regular ones is a narrower caliper, along with that a narrower set of pads. Still plenty thick so no worry on that.