Looking at options for a mustang 2 suspension for the 55 . Has anyone done one and increased the track width. Looking at a clip that will increase to 70” from 66” .
Why would you change one ifs for another ifs ??? I mean you're not going to pickup any ride quality or performance out of that swap.
I believe that the factory suspension is old and outdated. I’m also changing steering column to aftermarket so it makes since .
The '54+ Ford car suspension is as good or better than a MII setup. For less than half the cost and half the labor of a Mustang II setup, you can buy an entire front end kit with bushings, tie rods, ball joints, steering links, etc. to rebuild the stock front end. Upgrade to disc brakes up front, toss some Aerostar coils to lower it and good shocks in there and it'll handle and ride better than any MII and all of that would still cost less than any decent MII setup.
NAPA 2775245. 1992 Aerostar Try a cross reference to Moog, might be cheaper. Use the search function. There’s quite a lot of info on them in a number of vehicles. My 55 bird is the same front suspension as the passenger car. If you don’t want it lowered a bit, the spacers they sell for later model Mustangs will lift it a bit. Changing the column, or the steering box and column?
You might want to join the 53 to 59 Ford forum here: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/social-forums/1952-59-ford-social-group.282/ Click on 'social forum tools ' Click 'join forum' A lot of good info there for mid fifty Ford guys.
never in a million years would I think it was a good idea to put the front suspension from a pinto into a full size car
In reality there's nothing pinto about an aftermarket mustang ll, heavy wall tubular A-arms with modern bushings, heavy crossmembers and hats, aftermarket rack, million choices for springs and shocks.
There is some misinformation or lack of understanding out there concerning the so called MII suspensions. I agree with Mark that installing an original clip from a MII or Pinto on a larger car is a bad idea. People like FatMan have designed more robust front clips based on the Mustang II geometry The geometry and the steering rack are basically all that is used from the original design. Their control arms and ball joints are much stronger and the cross member of a FatMan is made of 5/16 wall rectangular tubing. It is strong! I have one under my 49 Buick, so it will handle heavy cars. These front clips, installed correctly, drive and handle great. Tires wear evenly and the engine bay is opened up considerably to accommodate engine swaps. They make front clips to accommodate just about any car, so give Tim a call for a recommendation and a quote.
So the thought was not to pull parts off an old car but buy a clip from TCI , I gather from other post that members don’t like this idea but make sense in what is gained in adjusting the caster and camber, clovers or air ? Options . I’m currently having clearance issues with my headers , that will be solved . If I could get a total rebuild kit for the front suspension, smaller steering box to mate up to my new steering column I may be good with what I have .
Do it. You will be glad you did, despite what the others say. The old suspension was not designed to optimize camber and caster for todays highway speeds and radial tires.
You don’t change the shocks. The Aerostar springs are slightly shorter and have a progressive winding. A bit softer on the little bumps, but stiffen up and (at least on a bird) don’t bottom as often. The bump stops don’t change. Combined with a good front anti roll bar it works out pretty well. Some cars can get the camber caster to what you need. My bird didn’t. Ford assembly wasn’t all that precise in those day. I made some new upper ball joint adapters and replaced the uppers with Howe screw in Chrysler style with extended studs. Made a great improvement. What’s your engine ?
Geometry is geometry, and has been since the days of Euclid. There may be very good reasons to go to a MII/Pinto-based suspension: pre-solved rack and pinion steering is; "outdated" isn't. How exactly do camber and caster optimise differently for radial tyres? Or for higher cruising speeds, for that matter?
I will give you an example. My 61 Buick had negative caster in the front end. Don't ask me why but there was no way to get positive caster and the service manual called for negative caster. Short of modifying the control arms you could not get it and it drove like crap on the highway. So, I modified the upper control arms and got my positive caster and now it drives reasonable well. Remember that suspension settings arent static and constant. They change as you go over undulations and around curves. Many of the older designs would change to positive camber in a turn. In order to get good contact patch with a radial tire, you want a controlled amount of negative camber. The more modern suspension designs can achieve that. Without that, your tires will wear on the outside shoulder. Rack and pinion is the most direct connected type of steering for our suspensions. It features two equal length tie rods and, if set up correctly, minimal bump steer and play. The older design independent suspensions have to use a drag link with additional pivot and wear points in order to acheive reasonable bump steer control. Some, like the early Mopar independent suspension has one very short control arm and one long. This would give you a lot of dumpster if the DS tire moves up and down and little if the PS moves up and down. Engineers spent a lot of time and effort to improve how suspensions work since horse and buggy days. You may not believe it but more modern designs actually do work better.
Negative caster is not unknown, and is associated with heavily laden front ends. Your Buick is a two-ton car with power steering only optional on the less expensive models. Despite glacially slow manual steering (5-odd turns lock to lock?) light steering was apparently considered important. No production car ifs has >100% camber recovery. Very few racing suspensions do, and then only when suspension travel is severely limited. Even approaching 100% camber recovery with real-world suspension travel without compromising roll centre height, geometric load transfer, proneness to jacking, etc. etc. etc. remains an uncrackable nut even after almost a century of head-scratching. If steering engineers were immortal they'd be like people who suffer from chronic illnesses and greet well-intentioned advice with, "Yes, I tried that in 1928. It didn't work." The only way to get ≈100% camber recovery is still with a solid axle. Indeed, <100% camber recovery was one early argument for ifs, as it was therefore a way to dial out oversteer. You're preaching to the converted as regards rack and pinion steering! But surely ifs steering very early settled on a three-piece tie rod with the centre link guided by idler arms, and the steering box driving the driver's side idler directly? The rack replaces the centre link, but the basics of the geometry remain the same. The advantage of rack and pinion steering isn't geometric; it's the ability to remain precise and direct-feeling after a lot of use. I'd be surprised if any ifs, old or modern, does not show at least a tiny bit of toe change in bump, even on cars known to handle superbly. It is of course a lot cheaper to tool up for a different-length centre link than for a different-length rack, but it's probably a case of there being a more or less wide window in which a bit of toe change doesn't matter.
My model A PU has independent suspension front and rear. Its how Dad did it in the early 80's The front is Mustang II type but dosent have a single factory part of. It has manual rack on the back side. 11" rotors and fully adjustable coil overs with Wilwood calipers . SS arms, aftermarket spindles and bolt on arms . Way more brakes than the tires can give traction to. If i was building it today I'd have gone traditional but honestly how I drive it the truck is better with full independent suspension and really really good brakes . It out handels my Vette and out stops it AND it rides good . I may autocross it for laughs. You can't tell it's modern from the side and you damn near need to kneel down to see it's not a dropped solid axle in the front. Rear is nothing your going to likely ever see in a model A . Almost afraid to admit it but it's a combination of Nissan Z stuff. 280z turbo calipers , 300 z diff . SX calipers 11.5" disks i cut down a bit to fit the rims i built this summer.. Coil overs i need to rework . Its not horrible looking from the rear as it has a single trailing A arm. Not traditional but certainly in the hot rod tradition and out side the box . Dad was and is pretty proud of it and I bet he didn't have $300 in the whole setup minus the coil overs. It all fits under a stock bed . Its all on a stock boxed model A frame. Id have to change the whole running gear and that's not going to happen as long as my dads alive it would break his heart. And honestly I like it . Call it a street rod I'm not offended .
I wouldn't hesitate to swap out the stock suspension for a bolt-in/weld-in front clip or crossmember setup from a reputable aftermarket company. Most of my customers want to upgrade to disc brakes, power steering, larger sway bar, etc. An IFS clip does all this in one move and allows for easy-to-find components (tie rod ends, ball joints, bushings, etc.) as opposed to the OE stuff. I'm too lazy to do the homework, but I would imaging rebuilding the stock front end, spindle to spindle, including the steering components, would be in the neighborhood of $1,000 if you could find all the stuff. You haven't upgraded anything yet and you're still reliant on 1950s technology (stamped control arms, caster/camber settings, etc). Now add the upgrades you desire. Someone probably makes a kit to add disc brakes to the mix, but I would expect another thousand dollar bill if you include the master. Power steering? Not sure if anyone offers a drop-in power box. If not, you'll be stuck with some type of rack and pinion cradle, if available. Drop another grand. Anyways, you see where this is going. Not to mention the options of larger sway bars, air bags, or coilovers, etc. To me, the clip is a no brainer and one of the reasons I've done a dozen or so over the years. A properly engineered kit will allow you to add caster and camber as desired to yield a more modern feel. For example, most kits have additional caster built into them to give the car a more stable ride/feel at freeway speeds that can be overcome at lower speeds due to the more powerful rack and pinion or power box. They are also designed to keep the camber in check in a lowered situation, something stock suspension with shorter or cut coils won't. A lot to take in, but a few things that most people don't take into consideration. A lot of people see it as an apples-to-apples comparison, which it is most definitely NOT.
I'm with my man from Texas, the '55 Chevy front suspension is as good if not better than the mustang II if you rebuild it and Kanter has the complete rebuild kit for around $425 bucks, I rebuild the suspension under our '54 Ford using Kanter parts and the ride is excellent and the car drives as if it were on rails. I have had a '40 Ford sedan with the Mustang II and a 39 Ford Convertible, I was never happy with the ride on ether car. HRP
I ran a 2" wider, aftermarket crossmember (not in a 55) that came from a shop here in Canada. If I remember correctly, it used something like Fairmont tie rod ends instead of Mustang to compensate for the wider stance. I ran a manual rack, factory upper and lower control arms, factory spindles and larger GM pattern brakes, and regular coil springs and shocks. I also used an aftermarket tubular strut rod (from TCI possibly) that kinda turned the factory lower control arm and rod into an A arm ... sorta. It all worked great but I really wish I had gone with a power rack. After I sold the car the new owner apparently did swap to power rack. I bought the crossmember from Paul Horton. His business is now called Welder Series. I believe his son runs the shop now and is a member on this site. They ship to the States. They also sell several different widths but their measurements don't jive with yours so it appears you may not be measuring from the same spot they are. Also, they were good people to deal with. Take a peek at their site at ... https://welderseries.com/
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