strut shaft height

[bad86stang]

Well, I finally got around to putting on my caster/camber plates from Maximum Motorsports. I am in the middle of a massive rebuild in which I yanked the engine, completely stripped the engine compartment and front suspension. I am in the process of putting back together the front suspension with upgraded stuff. The 1st step of the instructions for the caster/camber plates are to measure the where the top of the strut shaft is. Before I removed the struts I did measure the location (from the firewall and from the side of the engine compartment) of the center of the strut shaft so I could get the caster/camber close but I didn’t realize I would need the height of the strut shaft too. Luckily, I still had the old struts laying around so I bolted them back up and measured the height of the strut shaft. The instructions then have you use the provided spacers as appropriate to raise the height of the strut shaft above the baseline measurement as much as the car will be lowered. I am going to put on coil springs that lower it 7/8 of an inch. Once I put the spacers on to bring the height up 7/8” it seems a little high. In fact, it looks like it will probably hit the hood. Especially since I am putting on adjustable struts and the adjusting knob sticks up an additional ½ inch beyond the end of the strut shaft! I figured the measurement that I made with the old struts should have been close even though the bushings were not loaded (since the engine is not in). If anyone has a 1986 Mustang LX 5.0 with a stock suspension setup, I could really use a measurement of the strut shaft height (measured from the strut tower since I don’t have fenders on it either right now) as a sanity check. Actually I am not sure how important this measurement is since later in the installation instructions it says to reorder the spacers to lower it if it is closer to the hood than 1/8 inch. However, I would rather get the height right the first time, if I can.

 

[Stang951]

What struts are you going with?
With the Illuminas in my 88 I have two small spacers on top and a large one on the bottom. I could (and need to) change that to small on the bottom and two smalls on top.

 

[bad86stang]

I am putting on HAL (QAI) adjustable struts (P/N HAL-H200I). I have HAL adjustable shocks in the rear and they are pretty slick. All you have to do is turn a knob to adjust the hardness/softness of the shocks /struts. However, for the struts, the thing that I don't like is that it adds another 1/2 inch to the height (so t makes it 1/2 inch closer to the hood and possible hood interference). The spacers that came with the MM caster/camber plates are 2 sizes (1/2” and ¼”). Right now (based on the height measurement I took with the old struts installed and adding 7/8” to this height because I am putting on coil springs that will lower it this much), I end up with a ½” and a ¼” spacer on bottom and a ½” spacer on top. Unless I am missing something, the spacers on the bottom really set the height and the spacers on top just determine how much threaded part of the strut will be sticking up past the strut shaft nut, right?

 

[Stang951]

NO. That is how I had mine installed the first time and it was wrong. I have Illuminas with coilovers. The ride height wouldn't adjust lower with the two spacers on the bottom.
With the majority of the spacers on the bottom, the strut shaft will not be allowed to complete it's full travel and stay compressed more than it is supposed to. You need to put most of the spacers on top. Check the clearance by puttin putty on top of the strut and then lightly close the hood. That will let you know if the hood is going to hit them. I thought I would too, but didn;t have any problem.
Almost stock has most of his spacers on the top also and does not have any clearance issues. Just a trial and error thing.

 

[bad86stang]

The height that I was talking about when I said:
"Unless I am missing something, the spacers on the bottom really set the height and the spacers on top just determine how much threaded part of the strut will be sticking up past the strut shaft nut, right?"
was just the height of the strut shaft, not the ride height.

I still just have the stock separate strut and coil spring set up and don't have the coil over setup. I am not sure how the installation goes with coil overs.

It makes sense that if you have too many spacers on the bottom that it limits the travel. However, it also makes sense that (according to the instructions) that you want to make the height of the strut shaft higher than the stock height as much as you will be lowering it. That way the stock and lowered suspension will effectively have the same limit of travel.

Well, thanks for the clearance tips. I think I will go ahead and check the height to make sure there is no hood clearance problems before I continue on with the rest of the suspension install (coil springs, connecting all the stuff to the spindle) since it is a lot easier to remove the struts to rearrange the spacers without having to worry about the coil springs.

 

[bad86stang]

Okay, I got the height adjusted so I won’t have hood clearance-it’s going to be close! I ended up putting spacers on the bottom of the caster/camber plate (to lower the strut) that amounted to 1 inch. I used the stock hood for now (and had to slap on the fender really quick) but eventually I plan on getting an aftermarket hood. Hopefully the aftermarket hood will give me more clearance, not less.
So now for my next question. I am having a real hard time torqueing the top strut shaft nut to the specified torque. I can’t use a socket since I need to hold the flats above the threaded portion of the strut shaft so it doesn’t move. I ended up using a crows foot on the nut and a large crescent on the flats of the strut shaft. My old struts had a slot for a screwdriver and I don’t see how the screwdriver even would have held in there when you torque it. I thought the problem would be that the crows foot would just slip off when I try to torque the nut (if this happened I was going to cut off the box end of a wrench and take it to a machine shop to get it milled so I could connect a ratchet to it). However, instead I can’t even get the minimum 50 ft-lb of torque before I feel the strut shaft twisting! In fact, I might have already messed up one of the struts. When I turn the adjustment knob on one of the struts, I feel a little resistance once in a while (like it is slightly bent in one spot). I am beginning to wonder if adjustable struts were such a good idea after all. Is there a special tool for this or a trick?

 

[Stang951]

I never had a problem like that with the Tokico's. In fact I was able to torque them down with no problem the first time. Since they are three years old I just throw the impact on them now. Still no problem adjusting....except for the one that I dropped the body on when I was changing the spacer consifguration and destroyed the adjustment parts on top(time for a new one).

The best thing to do if you have time is call the manufacturer's tech line to see if they have suggestions. If you can't get in touch with them try some reputable shop that uses them to see what they do. I was lucky and got advice from Maximum Motorsports.