I don't think you will find anything in the way of NEW parts that is cheaper or easier to set up than using Mustang II stuff, especially if you stay with the stock style arms instead of the fancy tubular parts. Otherwise the junkyard is your friend.
Or use a Mustang II crossmember also. I bought a whole frontend from under a Bobcat (the Mercury version of the Mustang II kinda) and used the crossmember and all under a '39 Chevy tudor over 15 years ago. A little judicious cutting and bracing and you are good to go. I probably had under $500 in the whole thing rebuilt with a larger brake kit added.
Kent Fuller cut a Mustang ll front crossmember out of a donor car. He trimmed it and installed it in Tom 'Stroker' Medley's '40 Ford Coupe. Tom put 100K+ miles on that car with that setup. Not what I would do, but they did it! I hate Mustang ll front ends. Makes a Mustang ll out of an otherwise desireable car...
Yup, 'cept that a Dakota front end checks in at right about 62" hub to hub and a Mustang II at 56" stock or 58" with Granada rotors. BIG difference width wise and on a passenger car it's just too wide. On a fifties truck they work great. To really answer your question, what are you looking to put the front end on? I love Mustang II front ends under late thirties to early fifties cars and narrower trucks such as '47-'54 Chevys. ot so much on later trucks such as your avatar.
I have a complete rolling '55 '57 Chevy truck frame with a Chevelle type front and rear suspension already grafted on. Mounts set up for a SBC or BBC, 3-4 speed or GM auto. Comes with firewall mounted Power Booster and M/C. $800 PM me if interested. Thanks
Do it old school style,,find a Corvair front suspension!,,,,that was the hot ticket before the Mustang II. HRP
What vehicle are you considering the MII for? If it's a pre-war, an I-beam/transverse spring setup is pretty cheap.
Jaguar IFS from an XJ6 1986 and earlier. You can pick up the whole lot IFS with sway bar and power steering rack and IRS for the best riding combination with great handling for around $500. All the anti dive and anti squat geometry is built in and they come with big vented brakes. If you pick the right type of rear end you can get vented outboard brakes and a 'magic carpet' ride. Absolutely none finer IMO. Mustang II is at best significantly compromised and there are some very questionable practices from several suppliers - including 'name' companies, who think that they can re-engineer Ford's original Pinto suspension which had millions of dollars in development spent on it, in their back yard. Examples I have seen have included the use of unsuitable parts such as using the same ball joint top and bottom, badly designed cross members which fatigue and crack, weakly made A arms that have sheared, poorly made cast iron aftermarket spindles and much more.... The big question is what are you putting this in?
I put a Pinto (yes a real pinto for those of you who want to get all dramatic) front end under a bullet nose Stude in the mid '90s. It was easy squeezy a little tweaking on the cross member and some minor fab and it was under there and working. I was given the pinto for hauling it off. I have access to another one if I decide that trad is not the way I want to go on my '38. A friend collects pintos and he put all F body GM (I think F body is right like late model malibu) under his dailey wagon. Off the shelf any time parts at the local autozone he drives @ 100 miles a day, well that and he thinks that the GM parts are better. I know he is an odd duck. A little hard to find any more but Pacer front ends were popular under mid '50s F-100s for a while. Now another easy to find front end that we used to put under '50s GM trucks was the early C-10. They are almost a bolt in. But that is like totally obsolete, no one would want to do that anymore.
Got M-II on my Model A, w tubular A-arms, and it works great. Coil over shocks nestled in there.....good ride, adjustability, nothing wrong with it at all.
'47-'59 the early C-10 is the only way to go. There is a little more fab work on the AD trucks then on the later chassis. Steve is actually making up a Dakota front setup for my ol' '53 Stude (now belongs to 34toddster). They are a pretty narrow car. I think Steve can make you a Dakota front end for about anything in existence. When I finally get me a 33 Bugatti I'm calling him first. But they are not a cheap setup, quality costs and I don't believe in cheaping out on your ride.
More affordable? In the aftermarket, that isn't gonna happen. How much fab do you want to do? Stock car racing arms, spindles, etc. are "dirt" cheap, and can be assembled with "street" bushings in most cases; BUT you will have to figure out all the geometry on your own. Actually, strut rod type circle track suspensions are very similar to MII in terms of setting them up.
yep... the polock is the man when it comes to Dakota IFS... he has poured 1000's of hours into his IFS kits
Well he and I do not always agreee on everything. We don't have to agree to be friends, that is just part of it. Never the less if anyone ever asks for advice on IFS or is looking for something that will be jam up I send them to the Poloc. If you get it from him it will be right and that is a fact.
Depends on your skill level. I bought a Fatman M11,,a stoned monkey could install this,,no guess work, a bit of measuring and some welding. The off the shelf M11 you see on Ebay that claim to be one size fits all is not so,,the fellow who did my alignment after i installed had seen some M11 kits installed that could not be aligned due to improper geometry of the unit on the particular vehicle.
Not a truck, but I'm giving the Elpolako suspension a try in my 1977 Volare Road Runner. Lots of work, but it just looks right. (Thanks Ray!) Greg
Seems to me the total final cost is accumulated by what ever you buy to get the chosen unit installed and rebuilt to be completely new when you have it completed and road worthy. Bill aka Tnomoldw
Again, lots of opinions on this subject, no matter who or when its brought up. For $500 or so, you can buy a complete unit cut out of a pinto, ready to install in your car, a little measuring, mount it so the bottom of the crossmember is parrallel to the shop floor,(level), tack it in and recheck measurements and weld. build strut rod mounts, give the front end a rebuild and I don't see how you can get a better performing, riding suspension for the buck. Its not that I favour mII frontends, just if you're building on the cheap, they're the only way to go for a good driver. That said, my 29 chrysler three window is split bones early ford, cause it'll be an open wheel car, but my 36 ford pickup has had a pinto under the fenders for fifteen trouble free 100,000 mile years now. Its your choice, satisfy yourself that you've chosen the right frontend based on your needs.
You can't find a Pinto in a junk yard in So Cal to save your life - and the few Mustang II's that I've seen are always missing the front suspension!
Trollest nailed it! Simple as it gets on most early Ford and Chev applications. have a couple on the side of my shop that I buy when I see them that I have paid no more than 150.00 for. To adress Hotroddon's concern, at one time here in Phoenix, we had several enterprising hot rodders that had deals with the major wrecking yars to buy every set of Pinto and Mustang II spindles and arms they could get their hands on to resell to the kit manufacturers (I'm sure L.A. was in the same shape!). Granada and Pinto rear axles two. But, I notice as I walk through the local yards these days that althought the counts of Pintos and MustangIIs are certainly way down, they are now complete as far as suspension components go. I guess now that every single component is reproduced, there isn't a market any more for doing this deal. Might be time to look again, or head a few miles out of town. As a post script, my avatar has never had an odometer, but after twenty years as my only car, often doing the travelling salesman thing I figure I have well over 200,000 miles on my "undependable, scary, improperly done, terribly lightweight, and horrible handling" stock Pinto crossmembered hot rod! Of course it's none of the above, but those are the terms you hear quite frequently from "those in the know"...
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