Technical 1963 Galaxie/Country Sedan - Installed New wheels/tires now it handles like carp

UPDATE (finally)

So what I found - and now understand Mike was saying above) is the 1963 Galaxies used a "dog legged" lower control arm through-bolt. This effectively caused the lower control arm to move outward (side to side) as the car suspension moved - this outward movement constantly changed the tow in as well.

As Mike said, this was a known issue back in the day - and Holman Moody created a bar that would tie the right and left control arms together so they wouldnt do this.

Well, I finally tore my whole suspension apart and while doing so, manually rotated the lower control arm through bolt and was startled to see the movement in the suspension.

This caused me to recall what Mike had said earlier this year.

Looking into it further, I found 2 companies that make retro fit kits to delete this dog-legged through bolt and install a straight one - so the suspension can cycle without causing the control arms to move around wildly.

This should be a required upgrade for any 1963 (I believe its actually 60-64) Galaxie.

Along with this, I also swapped out ALL bushings front and rear, ALL ball joints and tie rods and added Quickor sway bars front and rear.

The car is absolutely TIGHT right now. No weird stuff going on.

I'm going to post a separate thread, with all the key words so future Galaxie owners experiencing this trouble can quickly diagnose and fix the problem.

Thanks!

Here's the stock control arm through bolt. If you can imagine it rotating, this causes the control arm to move sideways, while also effecting tow in.



Here's the new bolt. It uses offset bushings, but is otherwise a simple and straight forward fix.


Versions of this are made by born again cl***ics http://www.bornagaincl***ics.com/products.html

as well as rare parts http://rareparts.com/

 

Check out an earlier post that speaks to handling problems on 60 - 64 Fords. His observations made sense to me. His "fix" should be adopted regardless.

 

the holman moody style fix is not needed if you go with straight through bolts.

 

Hubcentric? The hole in the center of the wheel should fit snugly, also check the shoulder length on the lugs, if they have shoulders.

 

Very likely. It should be considered.

 

Hey boss, I posted an update above showing the problem and the resolution.

My wheels and tires are good.

 

Thanks for the update. The design of those lower control arms was supposed to be locking but they never stayed tight. Many were aligned and the head welded so it wouldn't move. Even then, with an FE engine there was so much weight in the front, the springs were designed for a soft ride and the tiny sway bar did very little to help. Stiffer springs, sway bar and good shocks makes one almost driveable. Adding a rear sway bar helps a lot too.

 

Over the years I have found that after adding deeper offset wheels to a car, more toe-in than normal is required to keep the car from "wandering". Sometimes it takes a trial and error adjustment of the toe-in to get the car to handle correctly.