I am helping my 17 yo son on his 62 Comet. We want to lower the car. I am figuring on 3" blocks in the back and cut 1-1/2 coils up front. What width blocks do I need? The springs are norrower than alot of other cars. I know I will need to get new U-bolts made which I have a source for. Any other tips or expeience you can share with us would be appreciated. Thanks, Todd
The blocks should be 2" wide. I believe the u-bolts are 3/8". A couple of things you might consider while you are in there: Doing a "Shelby drop" on the front suspension, and maybe de-arching the rearsprings by a couple of inches instead of running the deeper blocks. Running the stock 13" wheels gets pretty close to scrubline problems on these cars with too tall a block in back. The Shelby drop is a relocation of the upper a arms down 1" and an 1/8" rearward and helps increase caster and improves the camber curve for about an hours worth of work. Also lets you run a bit more spring for the same amount of drop.
Thanks for the info. I have read about the Shelby drop. Their are a couple of different ones depending on the year. We are going to be running 14" rims. I scored a set of 4 lug spider caps for it too. Todd
I don't know how the the comet is set up but maybe try putting the springs under the axle? That'll drop it a bit without unstableizing the car. Even though 3" isn't that much. I put 2 1/2" ones under my 61' falcon. It evened it out nicely but I want it lower so I'm gonna put the axle above the springs and figure out what to do with the front. I've never heard of a shelby kit, I'm gonna look into it.
The Shelby drop isn't a kit... It's just a relocation of the upper control arms. For the early Falcons you just grab a piece of good stout stock, (I used 1/2" X 2" strap) measure the distance between your upper control arm mount holes. Lay the holes out on a straight line on the stock and carefully center punch them. Now draw a line parallel to the first one 1" lower. Drop a line straight down from each of the first center punches and measure each one forward 1/8", and center punch. Drill the top two to 1/2", and drill the lower two to about 1/4". You just made your tool to make sure both sides match. Now drop the upper control arms on both sides, (you usually don't have to remove them, just pull them back out of the way) bolt your tool up to the top holes through your control arm mounts with the smaller holes rearward. Drill the lower holes to the 1/4 to start, remove your tool and drill up to 1/2". Repeat this on the other side, then reassemble your front end. That's it. The added caster makes these cars feel a hell of allot more firm on the road, and they dont seem to want to wander as much on windy days. The added camber curve keeps the front tires more completely on the road during turns and nuetralizes the understeer built into the steering. The raised roll center helps keep the car flatter in turns. Win, Win, Win! Oh, it also drops the car a bit too... Anywhere from about an inch to two inches. The dimensions I mentioned are correct for Falcon up to '65.
I made 2.5" blocks for this car, Axle is already on top of the spring. Even lowered only this much my Comet would nail the driveshaft into the top of the rear part of the tunnel. So if you have the means it would be nice to cut the back of the tunnel and add the clearance..
Dreadybear brings up a great point that I had forgotten about with these cars. I would limit yourself to about two inches of blocks in the rear on these cars unless you want to get into carving up the back of the driveshaft tunnel, back seat, etc. This goes double if he wants to haul a bunch of friends around in it. To add to my earlier post about the Shelby drop, if you go ahead and do it make sur to just cut about 1 coil off your springs first and reinstall and check everything. It seems to really acentuate the amount of drop a cut coil gives.
Do you have pictures of the relocated Upper arms. I am interested, but learn alot faster by seeing than reading and trying to visualize. Also, witht the drop front and rear, when you do pile in a bunch of heads into the ride, what is the ride height and feel? Roads around me are not the best and am trying to gather the info before doing it. Know what I mean.
Hey DreddyBear, My '62 Comet has reverse lights between the brake light sets, spaced equally from the gas cap, closer to the tail lights Is yours a 62? It looks very similar, but I know it is the minuet details that distinguish them. I also read somewhere that the reverse lights on the 62s were a dealer option, does anyone know anything about this? Thanks.
Cool! Thanks for the links and the diagrams. I was going to shoot a picture of my home made "tool" for the drop, but I'm having problems loading pictures on this computer. So much for the tech that I wanted to write on this for now...
I'm going to do my Ranchero in the next couple of days, so I'll shoot it while I do it. Then maybe I can find somebody's kid to help me with loading it on the computer...
Any progress on the Ranchero? Interested. I stuck 2" blocks in the rear and cut the original springs, the car sat so low, that when I hit a bump, I could hear the driveshaft pinging the underbody. Took the blocks out and bought new springs. Doh..
Hey guys! Sorry, when I posted that at the end of September, it was still about 115degrees out on a daily basis, so work was not going to happen for a few weeks until it cooled. Funny thing, it never really cooled until late October, then everybody that I talked to during the summer hibernation suddenly brought me tons of work! So my life has been a 24 hour a day run, run, run. Good for the checkbook, bad for the personal projects! If I hear "When my Farcon wagon gornna run!" (you'll have to provide your own female/broken engrish/Chinese accent!) from my girlfeind I think I might just fall on my sword... Long story short, no tech yet. I did however learn how to load pictures on this computer. So, here are some handy Falcon thing-a-ma-bobs I have cobbled together with my own ten thumbs over the last year or so, plus a picture from the engine compartment of the G.F's wagon of the already performed "Shelby drop". jflatly, Go easy when you cut springs my man, 'cause these things come down real quick when you mess with them! Always best to take a little off at a time to get where you want. The first couple of pictures are of a tool for the Shelby drop. Basically, what this does is drops the upper control arm's position on the cars body, and moves it back so that you can gain some much needed caster to help stabilize these cars. Follow the diagram that Relic Stew posted above for '65 '66, and make a steel drilling template like this. Mine is a scrap of 3/8" cold hot rolled. Be absolutely sure to mark which side is which! I drilled the upper holes to just a perfect fit for a 1/2" bolt, then the lowers to a 1/4" hole to guide a drill. Bolt in place of the control arm with the small drill holes low and to the back, drill, then enlarge to 1/2". I do this in several steps to keep everything uniform. Bolt your A arm back on, put everthing back together and get it aligned, done. Thing is, this doesn't drop the car too much, most folks get an inch or so. But, it does greta things for the camber curve, roll center, and caster. It ends up with a much better "feel" The other tool shown is my take on the factory's version of a spring compressor. 18" piece of 1/2 couse thread all thread (grade 8 if you can find it please), a disc of 1/4" aluminum that I spent 10 minutes on ElPolacko's lathe turning to fit the spring cup at the top, and a base of 1/2" steel drilled to the front shock bolt pattern. Basically, just pull the shock, slide the compressor down and bolt it to the shock mounts, slip the disc on the top and drop it down into the spring cup, crank the nut untill the sring is compressed enough to drop out. No pulling the out side sring covers, screwing around with outside clamp type compressoer better suited for Macphereson struts. Turns hours of work into minutes. The last shot is inside the engine compartment of the female's '62 wagon so you can see what a "Shelby drop" properly perfomed looks like. hope this helps a bit guys!
You can buy a negative wedge kit that will allow you to drop the upper arm 2". The kit will include wedges that will be used with your upper ball joints to prevent them from going into a bind. It will drop the car 1.5 - 1.75 inches.
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