In the intro thread I posted I've got a '48 F-1. Bought it a few months ago in Columbus and since then it's become my daily driver. Owner before me seemed to know next to nothing about the vehicle. It's been channeled 3" or so, has a 351W/C6/9", and has a front clip from an undetermined source with power discs and power steering. Lately I've been noticing some front end noise when turning the wheel, and today I finally took the time to put it up in the air and take a peak. After giving the p***enger side wheel a good shake, it was quickly determined to be a very tired idler arm. Unfortunately, since I did not know what kind of front end it was, it was difficult to find a replacement. The front end has torsion bars, which leads me to believe it is a late 70's plymouth front clip. The part number that appears on the the idler arm is 7173-f7 b , which I could not find anything online for and the part store could not cross reference. I ended up buying a '76 Valiant idler arm which looked awfully similar. It had the grease fitting for the frame side on the side of it, and the spacing and diameters all seemed to be the same. Did not verify if there was a difference between the change in depth from the center to frame ends. The bends and casting though were undoubtedly different. The idler arm went in easily, and while I was at it I gave the torsion bar adjustment bolts a good 4 turns in to raise the front end a bit. When I ****oned things up and took it on the road it resulted with a new noise and some really squirrely handling at low speeds. New noise was the centerlink dragging over the torsion bar, so obviously the geometry of the new idler arm is different and raised that end of the center link higher. I don't think increasing the ride height would have done anything to change the clearances there. So the question is, what is the correct idler arm? I was awfully close with the '76 Valiant, but when it come to front linkage close does not seem enough. Any ideas what it may be?
I'll buy that. While looking at photos on line it was decided that the valiant was the more similar idler arm, but photos make it real tough to judge the geometry. I'll round up a volar idler arm and see if it works better. Thanks.
I believe you're right, the photo I"ve found online shows the torsion bars running along side the center link. I did find this site that lists all the options for the early ford F-1 donor cars. http://www.ford-trucks.com/article/...es_for_1948__1960_Ford_Trucks_Part_Three.html I'm probably gonna start looking up photo's/diagrams of most of those front ends and see what looks most similar. Also, I suppose they could have mixed and matched parts to get the right clearances. I can tell the center-link has been narrowed.
I dug harder, and mystery solved. Apparently the '75-79 Cordoba's had torsion bars that ran front to back, and looking at the idler arm photos it seems identical to what I've got. Good deal.
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