About a year and a half ago I finally acquired a Mercury, not long after hit a semi head on with my F150 so I have been off here for a bit. Well, I am recovered enough that I am planning to work on the Merc this winter. I am doing an engine swap and while the engine is out I want to do the front suspension. The plan is tubular control arms and Granada disc brakes, the car already has a Borgeson power steering box. Shoebox central has a center link kit (which is not available at this time) but states it would not work with the set up I am using. I am wanting to get the bump steer issue resolved. Any suggestions? FYI, I will not clip this car so please don't recommend that. I have included a few pics of "Lucille" The '59 is "Leroy" my wifes car.
Good looking cars. I'm a 49-51 Merc guy, but that 59 looks sweet. Love the style of them. Glad you've recovered enough to get back on your ride. I'm no help on your question. I'm doing Jeep box, dropped spindles, and an ECI disc kit I bought years ago. It uses Volare/Aspen rotors, and I had to send my spindles to them to be modified. Not on the road yet, but sooner or later, it will be. Good luck!
Just a heads up tubular control arms and Granada disc brakes are not an allowed topic on the HAMB so this may be a short lived thread.
I think a good starting place is a tie rod that is parallel to and above the lower control arm with the inner pivot point on the the vertical line through the pivot points of the upper and lower control arms. It's basically finding the sweet spot of tie rod length and angle (both horizontally and vertically) that gives you the least amount of bump steer within the practical limitations of the vehicle. You can mock things up using angle iron and/or conduit to figure it out. The fun part will be finding the pieces with dimensions you need. When we were stock car racing my partner found a program that asked for a bunch of measurements and then gave you the settings. For street purposes a road racing program would probably be better.
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