- 4 Lug to 5 lug

    The suspension was the first major operation that I undertook in my Mustang restoration, which means I don't have any pictures to document my progress.

    The first things to go were the 4 lug front end pieces.  I purchased a barely used set of 5 lug front drums and spindles from a teacher at school, who set these aside long ago when he went over to front discs.  Along with the new 5 lug drums and spindles I rebuilt the front end.  Bushings, ball joints, springs, and spring perches where all changed to new stuff.  Later came a 7/8 sway bar and a power steering control valve rebuild.  So far so good, and it corners like a champ.

    I ran 5 lug in front and 4 lug in back for a few months until I acquired an 8 inch rear end.  The inline 6 rear was on its way out the door, so I figured it might be time to get it out of there before IT decides it wants to depart from the rest of the car.  The 8 inch swap was straight forward and simple.  The only thing I regret is not changing the rear leaf springs while I had them apart.  At the time I couldn't afford new springs, but I really wish I bought them because I get tired just thinking about dropping the rear end out again.

    The gear ratio went from a 3.20:1 to a 3.00:1.  It yielded better fuel economy, slightly, and very little loss in acceleration.  Now I just need to throw on a rear sway bar, traction bars, and new springs and its "good night Irene".
 

- Chassis

    Well I finally built my subframe connectors.  It has been long overdue, but it is finally done.

    I took a trip to the local scrap yard (what fun they are, man I love that place) and scrounged up some steel tubing and other miscelaneous steel to construct my subframe connectors.  I thought about aluminum, again, but decided that I couldn't weld aluminum very well, nor could I weld it to the car, which is made of steel.  By the end of the hour or two I had spent at the yard (they were closing), I had left with about $30 worth of scrap.  It was almost enough to build two sets of subframe connectors which I later found out.

    My idea for the connectors were simple: join the front frame with the rear frame via really strong tubing.  I did need to work out many bugs, like how they were going to weld to the cars frame and where exactly to join the parts of the frame with the connector.  It was a lot, and I do mean a lot of trial and error.  I tack welded and then readjusted 3 or 4 times on each weld before I finally settled on a particular fit.

    The basic dimension of the tubes were 2"D x 35"L and the stuff I used for the brackets was 2"W x 6"L, 1"W x 6"L, and 2"W x 2"L.  Deciding on a bracket design was the most difficult part.  I wanted something simple to construct, strong torsional resistence, and something easily welded to the frame of the car.  The front bracket was a piece of cake, but the rear bracket took a little more thought.  I knew I was going to be putting the Shelby traction bars in and I wanted them to weld directly to the subframe connectors to get excelent weight transfer, so that made it a bit more tricky to design the rear bracket.

Enough talk, let me show you some pictures to really show what I did.
 

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This is a picture of the front bracket welded to the front subframe.  As you can see it is a very simple triangular design, but it is also very strong	This is looking at it from the left side, looking towards the car.  Notice the smaller 1 inch piece that runs up a bit onto the subframe.  Not the best welding job in the world, but it does the job.  Gotta love that over head welding!
This is looking from the front bracket of the subframe connector back.  Notice too that it isn't a straight shot from the front subframe to the rear subframe.  I had to angle each bracket just right to be flush with each of the cars subframes.  Tack welding and trial and error was the easiest way to do it.	This is looking from the back to the front of the car.  There isn't much to the rear bracket, plus the shelby traction bar is in the way so you can't see much here anywho.
Here is looking at the rear bracket from under the car, can't see much though.  That is me with the laptop taking the pictures with a digital cam, ahhhh technology.	Once again, can't see much.  It is burried up in there pretty well, I'll just have to draw a picture of it so that you can tell what it looks like.  I welded the subframe connector directly to the frame then welded the traction bar directly to the subframe connector.  This is a much sturdier welding platform for the front traction bar mount.  The cars subframes are made of thin metal and might warp if the traction bars were really doing their job.

Here you can see the traction bar up under the left rear side of the axle.  They bolt directly to the big U-bolts that hold the spring to the axle then weld to the front frame rail.  They were definately worth the money and they look cool too.

    After all of the time I spent making the subframe connectors I was really hoping for an improvement in handling and body flex.  It helped ten times more than I thought it would.  While backing out of my driveway I immediately noticed a difference in frame flex, or lack of for that matter.  The car felt really solid.  Harsher ride?  I wouldn't say so, just less sloppy.  As far as cornering goes, wow.  The car will four wheel drift (which was almost impossible before due to the frame flexing so much), and stays more level in the corners.  I give it an A+.
 

Here are some updated pictures of some "new" underride bars that I have installed.  Took the old bars out, the ones with the rubber bushings, and replaced those with spherical rod ends and aluminum radius rods.  I was having suspension binding problems with the rubber bushings and decided it was time to end it.  I used the existing brackets from the stock underride bars and swapped the rod ends and rods in place of the tubular steel bar.