Mustang II need help with wheels

HI all,
I need some help !! I got a 1960 f100 that I put a mustang II front end in, and didn't widin it . I wish I could do that over!!! the front end is 56 1/2 from face of rotor to rotor. I need some wheels with 2" or less backspaceing. Haven't had much luck finding anything. I don't much care for the idea of wheel spacers. I can't be the only guy with this problem.. Any ideas??? thank, Daye

 

Good morning TIGERMUSKY, I had the same problem with the mst II under my 36 chevy p-up. I'm using stock 49 wheels and they were buried wayyyy in there. I opted for some 1 inch spacers to push em out some. I really dont like the idea , but I check the torque on ALL the lug nuts and service my wheel bearings religiously. Even if you use deep offset wheels, you really need to check, grease and reset your bearings as the take more abuse . The spacers are machined from billet aluminum , supposedly air craft type stuff, so they are atleast better than cheapo spacers. Hope this helps, Mike.

 

Good quatily spacer would probly work fine. Now I thinking about longer control arms??

 

T , longer control arms might mess up the geometry of the front end or they might not . But you will need some different ends for the rack to make up the width difference. I was thinking after I posted the first time and I do believe that some rotors have different offsets built in, check with some of the brake kit suppliers and see what they have to offer. You may need to switch to a gm bolt pattern , as I seem to remember that the wider rotors had 4 3/4 patterns . Good luck, Mike.

 

the 69 camaro 2 piece rotor is the wide rotor. about 1" or so per side.

 

Wheel spacers are about your only reasonably priced option here and I would not reject them too quickly as long as you understand the dynamics of how to use them and try and get close to zero offset by using the right backspacing on your wheels. You do not want to unnecessarily load up the wheel bearings by running small backspace wheels.

www.lugnutking.com for custom wheel spacers. Sensibly used they should not be a problem as long as you have at least 3/4" of usable thread left on the wheel studs. I am widening a rear end 2 inches per side this way with the type of T356 aluminum spacer that bolts to your existing wheel studs and provides another set of Grade 8 wheel studs in the same or different pattern. Raul the Lugnut King does them in various widths or you can go with longer wheel studs and a conventional slip over type wheel spacer. ARP 3" studs are around $15.00 for five - amazing that they are that cheap from ARP - I just bought some: P/N 100-7706 for Ford 1/2"-20.

Be sure to have the front end aligned again after the mods, before you hit the road.

 

I can build you wheels that only have 2" back space.. Feel free to give me a call or check out my website...As far as the comment above about loading your wheels bearings...If you use a spacer to push the wheel out OR build a wheel with a small amount of back space The wheels will be loading the bearings the same..Longer arms are available to cure your problem.. Jason.

www.earlywheel.com
805-772-7997

 

longer control arms are the only way to do it and have proper geometry. Wheels with high offset or wide rotors or whatever all increase scrub radius, which makes the car not drive very well. they will track poorly and wear out tires. You want a certain amount but too much and youll have problems... something to look into

 

I've always referred to spacers as a plate that slides over the existing studs and adapters as devices that bolt to the studs.

I've got a set of billet adapters on my Mustang so that I can run late model wheels. They are 4.5 x 5 to 4.5 x 5 (same bolt pattern), are 1.25" thick, and look like this:


You can get these in different thicknesses. I would NOT use the old cast adapters. These are strong enough that the off road community uses them on some pretty hefty vehicles with no issues.

It's important to remember that you still have to get the wheel offset right. If you push the wheels out too far you run into issues with scrub radius and other geometry that might affect steering and handling.

 

what crossmember kit did you use? if you do lengthen the arms i would get tubulars and just sleeve them. you can change the ratio and make the uppers a bit longer to give you a better ride. most mustang lls are at 60 percent now. i would make em 70 since you are cutting em up any way. the billet wheel spacer/adapters work well too. i have a set on a 400 horse truck no problems. ...

 

post some pics of your setup i would like to see it

 

I had wheels made with the spacing I wanted, and it worked out great. Don't try to get the wheels where they were from the factory, just get them out far enough to look good. In my case I think I only had the rims brought out an inch or so more per side, and that was plenty.

 

I was talking to a dirt track buddy of mine , and he said the same thing about the 69 camaro. You dirt guys are all alike lol.
left turns and less rotatating mass.

Thats a great idea. I need to get rid of this 5x4.25 bolt pattern and get a more useable pattern with extra 1". I'm gettin closer..


What about spindles, I wonder if a crown vic or t-bird are longer from center of ball joint to face of rotor???

Thanks, Daye

 

The crossmember is a junkyard pinto.( that was a bad idea too) spend a whole day at the yard, a day to clean up an old rusty piece of shit. (note to self) next time buy a prefab mII money well spent.

I got tuburlars arms . I like the sleeveing idea. that should be easy enuff to do. I would like to know more about the 60 to 70 % ???
here are so pics of the front end. thanks for all help!! Daye

 

IIRC, the Pinto crossmember leaves you with a 1 inch narrower track, in other words the Mustang II is an inch wider than the Pinto. The Pinto and Mustang II share most of the same components from 1974 and later, except for the crossmember. So if you are going to use the stock crossmember, get a Mustang II.

 

i got the 69 camaro rotors from napa . looks like that going to give me about 1" per side . now the calipers won't fit.there not wide enough.
Now what,
(A) find calipers that are about a 1/2' wider than gm metric with the same bolt spaceing. do than make such a thing?
(B) fab or buy new caliper mounts.
Any ideas????? thanks daye

 

new caliper brkts are whats needed.

 

percentage is basically the ration of the upper arms to the lower. if the lower is say 13 inches the upper may be 7 or around 60 percent. this is what gives your front end camber. increase your arms to 70 percent you get a softer ride and better handling. pre runners run about 80 percent most cars today are about 70 to 75.

Not to add insult but mustang ll and air ride doesnt mesh well. theres about 4 inches of usable travel on your front end before the camber goes to shit and about 5 inches before things start to bind. this is due to the height of the spindals and the ratio of the arms. the mustang ll was never meant to be used with air ride.

there is a solution. you can increase the length of the upper arms. and you can run 80s toyota truck spindals. they are taller and uses the same bolt pattern as your stangs. they toyota suspension is very similar to the mustang but addresses the above issues. and its easy to find.

im sure its not what you want to hear but i have been through it a few times and learned the hard way my self. pm me if you have any questions...

 

Listen to bondo boy, he's right on.

As a general rule, if the tires of your car are too far inboard for you to be visually comfortable, the solutions that will not negatively impact the handling of your car are to lengthen the control arms to put the wheel/tire where you want it in relationship to the fender (it makes the camber curves more gentle, too, usually a plus), or space out the control arms from each other (wider crossmember and/or inboard pickup points) to achieve the same end.

This is because a line drawn parallel to the centerline of the vehicle intersecting the point where the kingpin axis (or the same line drawn through the ball joint centers) intersects the ground is exactly where you want the center of the tire to be. Anything that moves the centerline of the tire in or out from this line will increase scrub and negatively affect the handling of your car! Add manual steering and/or a beam axle and you really appreciate neutral scrub (and notice the lack of).

Pretty simple if the wheels you have chosen maintain the same offsets as the ones the OEM provided (if you go wider than stock, you add equally to both sides), and the tires maintain the same diameters. Because manufacturers can and have used a kingpin axis of anywhere from around 7 degrees from vertical to around 20 degrees from vertical, you need to know how much your spindles are inclined to know where the kingpin axis hits the ground with any given tire and predict how much a larger diameter tire moves it out, or a smaller tire moves it in. The same thing applies if you've changed the wheel mounting surface/kingpin axis relationship (different hubs, drums, disc hats, spacers, etc.) and the offset of a wheel should only vary by the amount it takes to recenter the tire on the kingpin axis at the ground after the modifications.

 

Oh man what a can of worms you opened.

Start over, seriously.

You need to be at the very least 60 inches wide on your track, that's adding about 2 inches per side to your scrub radius if you use wheel adapters or offset wheels or some brake rotor conversion. This will give you some serious kickback in the steering that will manifest itself like bumpsteer. Also, bearing wear on the outer wheel bearing will be increased because of the extra load as well as the upper ball joint. Expect things to go away on you at a faster rate than normal.

Widening the control arms would eliminate the scrub radius problem but create new problems all together. A two inch longer arm will kill off most of your camber gain under susension travel and make this thing understeer pretty good. Shocks will need to be upgraded because of the extra leverage the longer arm has. Likewise braking loads will be increased on the front end so things like bushings and bracketry need to be likewise upgraded on an already marginal set up.

I encourage you to read some of my posts regarding Mustang II suspensions and how I have repaired them over the years.

 

Thanks Steve... I dig when you set it straight....

You're better off redoing it correctly than trying to band aid a fix...