68 Arning advice with (aftermarket?) LCA brackets

Hi everyone,

I could use some advice on whether I can pull off an Arning (Shelby) drop on my 68 coupe. When I bought the car it had a 315W in it, and it's had work done on shock towers already. It looks like a previous owner had welded on a new pair of of lower control arm/motor mount brackets among other things. The brackets look like they're the original 68 shape and size just based on images from the major supplier part catalogs, but I'm not 100% sure.

I'm considering doing a 1" drop, but the shape of the bracket makes me wonder if I'm able to pull it off. The brackets narrow significantly just below the 2 upper control arm bolt holes. If I use a standard template to drop the UCAs by an inch, the front of the new bolt holes would be right on if not overlapping the bracket. The rear bolt hole would (I from what I can tell) hang mostly off of the bracket's edge.

I could use advice as to whether a Shelby drop can be done with the brackets as they are. It not, is it feasible to weld on enough of an extension or patch to make the drop work?

For reference, I've attached a couple photos of my inner passenger side shock tower. One photo has highlights showing the rough position where the new holes would be drilled.

I've also scoured the de-facto Stangnet source on shock, but it hasn't quite answered the question for me towers https://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/threads/grafting-67-68-shock-towers-to-65-66-mustang.881929/

Thanks again for the help!

wicked93gs said:

I wouldn't try.....but since the engine is out, it wouldn't be too hard to replace the shock towers....a few hours of work per side really, a little bit more difficult than your standard Arning drop maybe, but the only real option you have...aside from those UCAs with the built-in arning drop(and who knows how safe those things are?)

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Trouble is I just finished replacing all 4 aprons. I'm not too keen drilling out the welds I just completed

wicked93gs said:

In that case...you do have another option....build up the weld where your green circle to the right is and grind it flat. I actually welded the whole thing around the perimeter myself...building up a bit of weld there will never be noticeable once the engine is sitting in place.

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That's close to what I'm thinking about doing. I'm considering cutting a rounded shim I can weld in place to widen it ever so slightly. That should be sufficient to hold the UCA bolt in place.

wicked93gs said:

In that case...you do have another option....build up the weld where your green circle to the right is and grind it flat. I actually welded the whole thing around the perimeter myself...building up a bit of weld there will never be noticeable once the engine is sitting in place. I was editing when you replied, so I don't know if you noticed...its a straight down drop for 67+ so that will help too.

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That's a really good point. I forgot that it's not a 1/8" backoff for the 67+. I think my first step is simply going to be printing a template to scale and marking everything off to make sure my assumptions are correct. Thanks again for the advice!