67 stang ride height problem

mustangillusion · Jan 9, 2008

I have a buddy with a 67 coupe. Originally and I6 car but had the complete v8 suspension swaped over years ago. Following the suspension swap he gathered a pair of granada front spindles to convert the brakes to disk. He used the granada spindles from the salvage yard but ordered everything else new to do the swap. (calipers, brakets, pins, etc) He ordered the parts for a 78 granada and everything bolted up perfectly. The problems is now he has an unusually high ride height and extreme toe out. He wears a set of front tires out in 6 months. Has anyone run into this problem before? He could not verify that the spindles were true 75-80 granada spindles, but the guy told him they were, as they were already pulled for another guy that changed his mind. Are there any differenced in spindle certerline in the granada spindles between years that might create this problem? Is it possible that the spindles are not granada spindles but bolt up perfectly? He also did the shelby mod which helped the fix the problem a little but the ride height is still unusually high.

geostang351 · Jan 9, 2008

mustangillusion said:
I have a buddy with a 67 coupe. Originally and I6 car but had the complete v8 suspension swaped over years ago. Following the suspension swap he gathered a pair of granada front spindles to convert the brakes to disk. He used the granada spindles from the salvage yard but ordered everything else new to do the swap. (calipers, brakets, pins, etc) He ordered the parts for a 78 granada and everything bolted up perfectly. The problems is now he has an unusually high ride height and extreme toe out. He wears a set of front tires out in 6 months. Has anyone run into this problem before? He could not verify that the spindles were true 75-80 granada spindles, but the guy told him they were, as they were already pulled for another guy that changed his mind. Are there any differenced in spindle certerline in the granada spindles between years that might create this problem? Is it possible that the spindles are not granada spindles but bolt up perfectly? He also did the shelby mod which helped the fix the problem a little but the ride height is still unusually high.

If he had a 6 cylinder to begin with, the outer tie rods would be too small for the Granada spindle and there would be considerable "slop and play" at normal driving. Did he replaec the outer tie rods with Granada specific rods?

The shelby mod will not drop the ride height any more then 1/4" if that.

mustangillusion · Jan 9, 2008

He said the complete suspension was swapped out for a v8 stang of a similar year. So the tie rod ends are V8 pieces.

68EFIvert · Jan 9, 2008

He needs to get Granada tie rods then. The stock tie rods for a 67 V8 mustang have a smaller diameter than the Granada does. As Geo stated there would be slack. Did he have the car aligned by an alignment shop that has experience with classics?

If he wants to nail the stance he will likely need to cut the coil springs. I would not cut them over 1 full coil. Beyond that he may have ball joint bind and premature failure.

mustangillusion · Jan 9, 2008

well I called him and apparently I missunderstood. He doesnt have excessive toe in! He Has Excessive positive camber. His tires lean out at the top. I dont really see where it can be a single ball joint problem because the height is the same on both sides.

2bav8 · Jan 9, 2008

Did he do an alignment after the spindle conversion?

mustangillusion · Jan 9, 2008

Yes he did do an alignment. Here are a few pics of the stang and its unusually high front ride height.

2bav8 · Jan 9, 2008

What coil springs is he using?

mustangillusion · Jan 9, 2008

he is using 620lb progressive rate lowering coils in the front and 5 1/2 leaf mid eye in the rear.

mustangillusion · Jan 9, 2008

He did say that after he did the shelby mod and relocated the control arm mounting point that his springs seemed loose when on the jack with the wheels hanging. On another note you may notice in the pictrues is that the back wheels are tucked inside the quarter panel quite a bit. He said that the rear does not measure out to a v8 mustangs rear width. He said it measured 49 and something inches. He did not do the V8 conversion himself and he was thinking that they may have used the suspension out of a falcon or something. So if they did then maybe thats the reason nothing seems to look right.

2bav8 · Jan 9, 2008

From those photos I wonder if its actually the rear that low, and the front is closer to stock ride height.

Either way, if the rear end is where you want to I'd start cutting the coil spring.
I've taken a full coil out of my coil springs to get my desired stance.

mustangillusion · Jan 9, 2008

2bav8 said:
From those photos I wonder if its actually the rear that low, and the front is closer to stock ride height.

Either way, if the rear end is where you want to I'd start cutting the coil spring.
I've taken a full coil out of my coil springs to get my desired stance.

did you have an unusual stance to after doing the conversion. Someone advised him not to cut the coil but to just get a different rate of spring.

2bav8 · Jan 9, 2008

Changing spindles had no effect on my ride height. I simply cut the coils to obtain a lower front stance. Its what you do when you race.

mustangillusion · Jan 10, 2008

Well I know he already had lowering springs in the front so I wouldnt think he would need to cut them to. He said that the springs were loose now when jacked up. So im thinking that if he cut another coil of that they might come loose if the control arm ever traveled its full distance. Their has to be a better way of doing this. Can anyone verify if the falcon rear is narrower?

68EFIvert · Jan 10, 2008

Cutting the coil will not cause it to come loose during suspension travel. It will be easy to put the new lowering coil springs in the car and it will sit in there loose. What you have to remember is the shock will hold tension on the spring and keep it in place. Before converting to a coilover system I had 620 springs with 1/2 coil cut. they were loose fitting. I was not able to install the shocks while the car was in the air and had to put it on the ground for the shock to extend far enough. He should be fine cutting the coil. Start with 1/3 or 1/2 a coil and go from there. Use a 4" angle grinder (hack saw or dremel tool work if you have a lot of time) and never use a torch. After you cut the coils have the car aligned again because it will throw off the original alignment.

bnickel · Jan 10, 2008

first off i think he has more than one problem here. the high front ride height is probably because of preload on the front suspension. i'm betting he tightened all of the suspension bolts with the car in the air, that's a big no-no, he needs to loosen the lower control arm mounting bolts and let the car back don on the ground and then re-tighten them, that should help with the high front end, also i'd be willing to bet whoever did the alignment did a crappy job so he's going to need another alignment as well, from a different shop.

also you said the suspension parts came from a v8 car but what year? he needs to have 67 or 68-70 front suspension pieces on the car, the lower control arms are specific to 67 cars and have their own specific strut rods, if you put 68-70 lower control arms on the car then he'll need the 68-70 strut rods as well, everything else from a 67-70 will bolt right up.

he will need to get the granada tie rods as well, it's very dangerous to be driving the car with the wrong tie rods.

as far as the rearend goes we'd need to know what year falcon the rear came from to tell you whether or not it's narrower than the stock mustang one.

also make absolutely sure he didn't use 65-66 suspension parts on the car, they absolutley won't work and could create a similar problem to what he has if they were used in the car.

CraigMBA · Jan 10, 2008

I wanna know how he got exessive positive camber.

Frankly, I want to know how he got positive camber period.

jbuening · Jan 10, 2008

We need to know what year suspension he put on the car, as "V8" doesn't help much. I'm pretty sure the 65-66 UCA's and LCA's are roughly an inch shorter than the 67-70. The 67 has specific UCA's and LCA's only to that year due to the strut rod as bnickel stated.
It's doubtful that he received non-granada spindles, because so far that is the only spindle type that we've found that will fit on a mustang in regards to balljoint size and taper as well as being rear steer. He definitely needs either Granada outer tie rods OR 70 mustang outer tie rods.

bnickel · Jan 10, 2008

CraigMBA said:
I wanna know how he got exessive positive camber.

Frankly, I want to know how he got positive camber period.

that's easy, pushing the LCA in all towards the centerline of the car gets you positive camber, pulling it from the centerline gets you negative camber. it's probably a little harder to get positive camber on a 65-66 but it's really easy on the 67-up cars.

CraigMBA · Jan 10, 2008

bnickel said:
that's easy, pushing the LCA in all towards the centerline of the car gets you positive camber, pulling it from the centerline gets you negative camber. it's probably a little harder to get positive camber on a 65-66 but it's really easy on the 67-up cars.

With the eccentrics on the LCA's? I forgot about them. If I had one of those cars, I'd buy the PMS eccentric eleminator first.

It's real tough to get positive camber on a 64-66.

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