I picked up a '64 Comet that someone started and lost interest. It has a Heidt's Mustang II cross member welded in and I got the economy lower control arm and some OEM looking uppers. The rotors look Mustang II or Pinto small, didn't measure. Looks like the spindles may be OEM. By the way, I am new to using any Mustang II suspensions. Are all of the MII spindles the same or are the aftermarket vendors offering beefed up spindles? My Comet will have a 427 FE, 4 link back-halved car. So I'll have extra weight on the front. want to make sure what parts I got with this car are worthy of installing. At the moment I don't think I have a desire to run the fancy tubular and chrome control arms so if everything I have is good to use, I'll buy some 11" rotors and move on.
Hey Doug, Is this going to be a Drag car only? If so, Chris Alston Chassis makes some spindles: https://www.cachassisworks.com/c-70-drag-race-a-arm-system.aspx?pagenum=1 Glenn
You can get everything beefed up for the MII. The Mustang 2 or pinto ( same basic front end) was an econo front end built to handle the rigors of 4 cylinder cruising. But the after market has had a field day with them and very little is actually Ford factory other then basic dimensions. I think that your basic pieces even from a stock Mustang/pinto front end will hold up fine under an FE, it is springs and brakes where you are going to run into a real problem. Unless you are building a wheel stander of course.
This is a common subject for which there is much erroneous information. The '71 thru '73 Pinto is a different spec front end than the '74 thru '81 Pinto/Bobcat and is shared with the '74 thru '78 Mustang II. The Mustang II front end was designed to accommodate a lot more weight than is generally believed. First of all, they are a bit heavier than most people seem to think, and secondly, have a serious forward weight bias because the engine is centered over the front axle centerline. A 302 Mustang II weighs in at about 3000 lbs and has about 55% of that forward. The gennie Ford spindles from that front end are forged, and have wheel bearings shared with Galaxies. The stock 9" brakes are crappy, but that is easily remedied. There may be good reasons not to use an MMII frontend, but stock spindle strength isn't one of them. Ray
Actually 'Beaner, Ford themselves put small block V8s on the Mustang II front end in the "cobra" cars of the mid seventies. The biggest myth about these front ends is that they are somehow "light" or "weak". The ball joint shafts, for instance, are larger than those that the popular GM clips ever came with. Most of the after market stuff is indeed altered, but not for "beefing it up". Dropped spindles abound, uprated disc brakes are as close as a pair of Granada discs from your local wholesaler and some 80.00 brackets from Speedway (or equivalent) to hold G.M. metric calipers. Most the aftermarket arms are attempts to make the lower arms "strutless", which I highly recommend avoiding. Use the stock strut rods and arms if you have them. The strutless stuff for the most part isn't mounted in any form of double shear and just doesn't hold up to normal daily type use very well without blow the back of the cross member out. Quality of the aftermarket stuff also ranges from better than good, to appalling. On a vehicle that weighs less than 3200 or so, and requires a track width of about 56 1/2" - 58 1/2", the Mustang II, properly set up is just about as good as it gets. Widened, narrowed, geometry revised to aid fitting, truck applications, cars much over 3200lbs, find something else.
The Jalopy Journal
