thanks so much for the kind words. i think i'm blushing. i have to do it all myself cuz i can't afford to pay anyone! Necessity breeds innovation. Over time, I just realized that the doing is the fun part. Well... racing is really fun as well
Well, I finally made a bit more progress. I cut off all the spot welds and removed the rest of the floor exposing the frame rails. They are in mint condition . I was kind of worried since the floor was rusted through in a few spots. I cut out the spare tire area, made a frame and mounted the air tank. Next up...drop a plumb line and center the diff. Then I mocked up a pan hard rod using a broom handle. I am not quite sure where to put it. The first idea is to put it over the axle so there's plenty of room behind the axle for the airbags... here's how it would sit aired down. and at ride height. i'm not real sure on that yet, but now i can get the wheels and tires then it will start to look like a car again!!
take a bow dude! with all the rust can't say i would have kept going to the point where your at. way to do a thread with great pic's and detailed "step-by step"
Dude! Off and running with a great start.. Cant wait to see how it turns out.,. Gotta love a longroof laid out on bags!!!
yea, got a bit more done. One subframe connector/torque box tacked up. panhard rod brackets figured out. much of it isn't picture worthy, like measuring for wheels, stamping one, checking it, stamp another w/ more back spacing etc. just got the wheels back from powdercoating and they look great! mounted 1 tire and it fits great in the rear, but might be a bit tall for the front. the bag mounts all relate to the wheels and tires, so they need to be right first. I'll have some pics coming up soon here. it'll start looking like a car with the rollers on!! good times
Yeah Falcons are "REALLY" picky when it comes to what rims will fit, i'm running 14x6 standard chrome smoothies, and have about 4" dearched leaf springs and the wheels fit fine, SNUG but fine, no rubbing. when i picked up a new set of astros "standard", and running the same tire p185/75r14 tires as my smoothies, i mounted them and noticed the rims where TIGHT. they barely rub the inner rear fender enough to rub through the black wall and expose a bit of white. tried a few other rims and tires and the same thing. damn picky cars....
here's what i got so far... the rear is looking good to me. the tires are 195 75 15s and are 26.15" tall. this seems too tall for the front. i will have to set ride height too high to be able to turn it. it seems that the wheel opening would need to be enlarged for this to work. it may need to anyway for proportion's sake. (makes the 4 door not seem so long) i seem to have 2 options for smaller front tires... 165 80 15 (on a 6" rim?) with a 25.25" diameter or... a different manufacturer/tread, 185 65 15 with a 24.45" diameter. if any of you know about tires and falcons feel free to chime in, as they get expensive to ship and restock, and once mounted on the wheel, i can't return them... here's what it looks like rear... fits perfecto, but hard to remove front- aired down... from rear from front
ray, thanks for the pic!! do you have any issues at ride height with them binding? I was thinking about moving the strut rods to the bottom of the lower control arms because that's what actually hits the frame, but I hadn't thought through yet how I was going to attach it there. I didn't want to modify the arm to heavily. Then I would have to do the modification every time the arm went bad. your idea looks good. Did you weld a spacer block at the top of the strut rod? I am also waiting on dennis from discbrakeswap.com to get his droped spindles out. they should be out any time now, and then I can get serious about the measurements... Unfortunately right now I have to figure out the tires and spend the least amount of money on shipping and restocking.I'm not really that fond of the" guess wrong, and it'll cost you" phase of a project. Peace
these seem to be the tire choices that I'm left with.... The one on the right is the one I have currently for the rear ( and the front as of now). The one on the left is the closest thing I can find with a smaller diameter. these come straight off of the coker website. It's kind of hard for me to tell with the drastic difference in caps, but it doesn't seem like the look is right between the two. a bit too big of a mismatch between the brands. The smaller one is the 185 65 15, as I ruled out the 165 because it is too skinny. hmmmmm....
Dude you do some really heavy duty and clean work, that wagon is going to look way cool!! Nice work bro! Buzz
no binding issues, i've heard from others with lowered cars using mustang suspensions that the ball joints don't work well at extreme angles, i dunno? i know i'm really pushing the suspension geometry to the extreme. FWIW when i drive the car, my ride height is aired up about an inch. i tell my girlfriend to drive a little higher, like two inches! i just used a 1" or so aluminum spacer, nothin fancy.
Lookin' real good,,,I know from my own experence with my wagon about repairing a lot of weak and rusty metal before you can make any real progress. The wheels and tire look like they were made for the falcon,,, HRP
thanks guys! i am using mustang A arms and the ball joint angle does look a bit extreme. i'm hoping the drop spindles will fix some of the geometry. i did the shelby drop for handling as well, and i'm not sure that this helps in this instance. i can also do the old trick of cutting the upper arm and fixing the ball joint angle...
well, I finally got back around to working on the project again. I needed to tie the rear arms and mounts to the front frame rails, as well as box in the rockers. The unibody on those cars suck. I had to remove the transmission cross member, because it was too narrow to clear the transmission. So it could definitely use all the support it can get. I will usually build a piece in the car and leave it rough, just so that I know it fits. Then cut it out final weld it and finish it. I will usually beef it up and strengthen it at this point. cutting out the cross member was a major headache. It took forever to get it all cleaned up. There's really not enough room to build a different one around the transmission, so I hope that the transmission mount will suffice. Especially if I tie it to the frame and the subframe connectors. it felt really good to finally see that thing on the ground. I used a bottle jack and a push bar to make sure there were no gaps before welding in the subframe connectors. gap-less! I then re-plated the bottom of the original frame rail, so I have a nice flat place to build the tranny cross member. and here's where I left off... I kind of need to finalize the transmission mounts before I can finish the rear suspension. I need to have the pinion angle set up before I can weld all my brackets to the diff. I'm still waiting on dropped spindles for the front, and I will have to narrow my front suspension, so there will be more saga to follow...
can't wait, im really hoping you have a side/rear 3/4 shot of the suspension that shows the trailing arms, was that clear. like form the wheel well forward witht the tire off to get a scope of the rear suspension. i have a slightly too new unibody car that im planning on doing the trailing arm and panhard thing. it seems to be a good compromise between space and with a long enough arm the pinion change shouldn't be too bad. thanks matt
No problem, I will try to get some good pics next time I'm down there. Once I get the driveline angle and the trans-mount done, I'll be able to set up and finish the rear suspension. The perches are just tacked on to the axle housing, and they are not pinned to the arm yet. the pan hard bar is just a mockup with a broom handle for now. There sure is a lot of little stuff to figure out...
any updates? also curious how long from bolt eye to axle centerline are your trailing arms? the only reason i ask is that ive been doing some math and drawings for my similar setup and i seem to be getting way more pinion change than will be acceptable. like with a 26 inch arm i'm getting like 7 degrees of trailing arm angle change, in one direction! this is for like 3 inches of travel from ride height in either direction. even if my pinion is pointed at a different angle than the trailing arm(say 3 degrees up) it should change at the same rate as the arm because it is solidly mounted, right? how did you figure this maybe i'm doing the math wrong or something. i figure i need at least 3 inches either way from ride height, what do think? what is the falcon gonna have? thanks ! matt
sorry for the delay in getting these pictures I have not done any of the final setting up of the rear axle. I have been working on the cross member and the tranny mount. I can't really set up my pinion angle until I know exactly the angle of the driveline. My arms are 31 inches long, but currently the axle is setting 22 inches back from the center of the bushing. I will probably move it back a little more, as I have some room to do so. I am going to set up the pinion angle to be accurate at ride height. I'm not going to drive it with the bags all the way up, and with the bags all the way down, It doesn't need to be optimal, it just needs to be able to drive (Slowly). The biggest issue I think I will have with the pinion angle change, is the binding of the pan hard bar... It is going to be a major PITA though to remove the rear wheels and tires, as I will probably have to drop the pan hard bar, bags, and shocks. Here are a few more pics I have...
The Jalopy Journal
