How badly did I screw up?

My 67 Coupe is currently getting new shock towers put in after I discovered the old ones were badly cracked. Well I got the new ones in and figured I should go ahead and do the shelby drop.

Before I discovered the shock tower issue I ordered a complete suspension rebuild kit via opentracker. They included the 1" drop template with this kit.

So I went ahead and drilled the passenger side first. I started with a 1/8" drill bit and worked my way up to 1/2". I took my new UCA from opentracker and tested the fit. Perfect. I went ahead and opened it up to 17/32" as per the instructions.

I moved onto the driver's side and followed the same procedure. When I went to test fit the UCA....issues. The holes were spaced just slightly too far apart (maybe 1/8") I wasn't able to get the first thread past the "lip" of the holes. I also noticed that the grease fitting on the left side of UCA was interfering with the inside of the shock tower while on the passenger side I had about 1/8" clearance. After looking at it some I decided the left hole was too far too the left which was causing my fitment issues. I took a round file and filed the left hole until I was able to get the UCA to fit in. I got it to that point and called it a night frustrated. The grease fitting is still riding slightly against the shock tower though.

I'm really upset at myself for this. Some of the larger drill bits were a bit dull and I was struggling with them. In hindsight I should have just bought new ones.

So now I'm stuck with an oblong hole which I'm not even sure has the UCA placed correctly. To add to my frustration I just went through a ton of work replacing both shock towers.

Anyway I'm looking for some sage advice on this. I feel like an idiot and am really frustrated with myself.

I didn't think to snap a picture at the time but I can probably get one up in the next day or two.

Thanks all.

Thanks for the responses everyone. It's good to have a support community like this.

latamud said:

Weld up the new holes, you can use a piece of brass to help fill the holes. Grind them down smooth. Drill the correct holes where they need to be. After new holes are drilled maybe weld big flat washers over the holes to the engine side of the tower to reinforce them. Viola.

Bart

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Welding them up did cross my mind but I'm nervous that the area around the hole will crack because of the heat put into the surrounding metal. I suppose that is the point of welding the washer but it still makes me nervous.

horseballz said:

pyroman,
On the driver side (the one with issues) is the grease fitting touching the front of the shock tower or the rear? If the rear, you are likely OK. If the front see a couple of possible options. Did you get the roller arms or the standard? If the standard, you could carefully put the nuts on the bolts so the nut is even with the end of the bolts and gently hammer the bolts loose and twist the shaft so you can get the bolts out. Then continue to twist the shaft, threading it "into" the front cap either one or two full turns. This will effectively move the arm and the caps rearward. If roller arms, you could weld up the holes nicely, grind them smooth and re-drill. Remember that where these end up, front to rear, effects your caster. Many instructions for the Shelby drop on 67 & up suggest moving the new holes rearward by 1/16" to 1/8" to easily achieve proper caster without cocking the lower control arm too far forward. Read everything written here about Mustang suspension:

DazeCars, Ford Galaxie Mustang tech and restoration

Nothing is so bad as to not be able to be corrected.

I hope this helps you out,
Gene

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The grease fitting is touching the front of the tower so it's sitting too far forward. I bought the standard arms but I'm sort of confused about your solution. Are you talking about threading the 1/2 nuts onto the control arm? Oh ok now I think I see what you are saying. Basically slide the shaft of the control arm rearward?

Thanks for the link I am going to thoroughly read through everything this time.

horseballz said:

Oh, By The Way,
Speaking as a woodworker who ALWAYS measures/checks fit at least twice before cutting/drilling,

WHAT A BONE HEAD !

Just kiddin' man. Don't sweat it, life's too short to beat yourself up about little mistakes that can always teach you something!
Good Luck,
Gene

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Haha, hell I'm the first one to admit it was boneheaded. I deserve the ball busting but hey you're right best lessons are usually the hardest ones.

2+2GT said:

What grease fitting did you use?

These?

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Yeah those are the ones on there.

PoppyMod said:

Sorry to hear about all of your troubles. I think we ll can divulge that we have been there at one point or another.
Are you using metal drill guides like these?

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Yeah I have a metal guide. The mounting holes are 1/2" while the "shelby" holes are 1/8". I got it from opentracker.


On another note. I compared the old control arm to the new one and the old one looks to be about 1/8"-3/16" narrower (grease fitting to grease fitting) than the new ones I have. The old one fits into the filed out hole with the grease fitting clearing the forward side easily.

Thanks everyone.

horseballz said:

pyroman,
The shaft is threadend on each end (inside the caps) with a coarse "ACME" type thread. You can turn/twist the shaft (once the two mounting bolts are removed) to move the shaft forward or rearward. In your case, you want to move the shaft forward, which will move the control arm and grease caps/bushings rearward. You can likely only get one or two full turns of the shaft before binding. If you take a good look at PoppyMod's pic of the template you will see that the lower holes are not quite perpendicular to the larger upper holes. This template is meant to be used with the lower holes justified to the rearward, which means you need to have one surface facing you/outward while drilling on one side of the car and then the other surface facing you/outward on the opposite side of the car. This gives the 1/16" to 1/8" "improved" positive caster that I mentioned earlier. If your templates are like this and you failed to notice it AND failed to "flip" the template, your control arm will be 1/16" to 1/8" farther forward than stock (instead of that amount rearward), which puts it 1/8" to 1/4" farther forward than the other side. If this is the case, you may be stuck with the option of filling the holes and re-drilling unless you can get enough movement by twisting the shaft.
I hope my explanation isn't too confusing,
Gene

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Gene,

Thanks I got it this time. I understand where you're going with that. I'll take a look at doing that tomorrow. Regarding the offset of the holes, it is my understanding from what I've been reading that the drop templates for 60-66 cars had that 1/8" rearward shift of the mounting holes and that 67+ cars were 1" down and 0 over so that they were directly below the original holes with no forward or rearward shift. My template looks symmetric but in any case I in fact did flip it when I went to drill the holes for the driver's side.

Tomorrow I'm going to make a second template and drill the pilot holes out to the correct diameter and see where the misalignment is. I think I might also practice welding up those holes on my old shock towers

Emile

2+2GT said:

I have seen those hit the tower on stone-stock cars. You need to get the ones especially designed for the tight confines of the Mustang tower. That said, there is a VERY specific arm width in the Factory Shop Manual, and the caps MUST be tightened to this EXACT width for proper function. Fitment is part of it, but function is, too.

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When you say arm width you mean the distance from grease fitting to grease fitting? I noticed that my new UCAs are a bit wider than the ones I took off the car, I thought this was odd. Has anyone else noticed this? Are the fittings you're talking about the ones you have pictured? I'm assuming so but where would I get them?

As far as the location of the holes, does anyone have a drawing or know where one is that shows the exact location of the holes in relation to the frame or other reference points?

2+2GT said:

No, the dimension given by Ford is the space on the inside of the arm between the caps. This can easily be wrong if the caps are not screwed in far enough, or too far.

Mustang suppliers have these fittings, Glazier Nolan calls them G05142.

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Ok I see what you're saying now. I'll check that out next time I see the car and thanks for the information.

I have a bit of an update. I did some measuring, fitment checking etc etc.

Photos:

These are the holes drilled on the passenger side:



This is the forward clearance between the zerk fitting and shock tower on the passenger side which I measured to be just under 0.075".



This is the rearward clearance between the zerk fitting and the shock tower on the passenger side which is very close, nearly touching.



This is how the UCA on the passenger side sits



These are the holes drilled on the driver's side. The left is the one I had to file. I only filed the right side of the hole so there isn't any movement of the control arm once it sits in it. The right constrains it so there isn't any side to side movement and it can't move up an down because of the way I filed it.











I mocked up a paper drop template to give me an idea about where the holes lay. It's not perfect but it's close enough I think.



This is the forward clearance between the zerk fitting and shock tower on the driver side which is in surface contact. You can see where it has been rubbing. However, I was able to get the control arm to sit flush up against the inside of the shock tower.



This is the rearward clearance between the zerk fitting and shock tower on the passenger side which I measured to be just over 0.075"



So it seems that the clearance for the UCA is "flipped" passenger to driver side if you know what I mean. I also compared the new UCA to the old



It's slightly narrower and the shaft has been shifted about 3/8" towards the rear of the car like horseballz described above which explains why it fit better without interference.

Additionally, I took some measurements to see how the sides compared.

Bottom of frame rail to front middle of bolt on UCA (PASS) - ~7 9/16"
Bottom of frame rail to front middle of bolt on UCA (DRIV) - ~7 5/8"

Back of front bolt to radiator core support (PASS) - ~19 7/8"
Back of front bolt to radiator core support (DRIV) - ~19 7/8"

Seems ok to me?

What I'm thinking is the location of the UCA seem to be good and even though one of the holes is oblong it is constrained from movement so it may be ok to leave it as is? I was thinking of filling the left side of the oblong hole in some manner for my own assurance but it may not be necessary.

Comments welcome

I forgot to mention in that lengthy post that I removed one of the arms and popped the mounting studs out and rotated the shaft 1/2 turn and reinstalled the studs. This gave me a little more clearance than what is shown in the pictures. I wasn't able to snap any pictures after the fact though.

But cool, I'm glad it looks OK.

Opentracker lists the UCA as 67-73, I didn't know there was a change between 67-69 and 70-73. Are they just larger and stiffer than the original 67-69s?

Thanks to John over at OpenTracker for sending me a shelby drop template with the larger sized holes free of charge. I put it on the car to see how the holes looked







That gives an idea of how much "play" is in the holes. It looks to be about 1/8" like I guessed earlier.