Front Suspension

It's all gone, finally!

Now to play the waiting game (i.e. saving money) for the new parts. Here's a few, off the top of my head:

480# coil springs from NPD
Coil spring perches and insulators
Rubber bumpers
Upper Control Arm shaft rebuild kit
Upper Control Arm ball joints
Lower Control Arms

I was going to work on the rear, but seeing as the front is jacked up, it made the rear "drop" slightly. I can't even get under it. So, I'm not even going to bother until the front is complete.

Gone

All the Ball Joints have been disconnected from the spindles. The spindles were then removed, obviously, from the Upper and Lower Control Arms, and I examined the brake lines.

On the stock drum brake setup, the steel brake line comes through the shock tower and heads straight down to a bracket, where it couples with the rubber brake line. The rubber brake line then allows for movement when turning the wheels. The bracket/rubber brake line are all on the rear-side of the spindle (in other words, away from the front of the car) because the input to the drum brakes is on the rear side.

On the new disc brake setup, the input on the caliper for the rubber brake line is near the middle, but angled toward the front of the car. Thus, the old brake line setup will not work. It was suggested to me to buy a brake line adapter from Mustangs Plus which will route the brake line more forward (towards the front of the car) so that the rubber brake line does not kink.

Here is a mock-up of what the new brake/wheel assembly will look like on the car.

From Blog Photos

And here's a mock-up of the new wheels on the car.

From Blog Photos

Still lots of work to be done before those can actually be installed. List includes:

New Master Cylinder installed
New SS Brake Lines installed
Brake Line Brackets mounted
Brake/Wheel assembly double-checked
New Upper/Lower Ball Joints
Upper/Lower Control Arms cleaned/de-rusted
New Tie Rods installed

And probably a few hundred bucks to blow, too. :D

One more down

One more ball joint is loose, but it's past 10:00. Hopefully tomorrow the bottom one (which is always harder to break loose than the top ball joint) is a little easier to break free.

Glass shards

After I removed the ball joints, I realized my hand hurt. Turns out, there are dozens of microscopically small glass shards in my hand. I have no idea how it happened...but holy crap, it hurts.

I worked on removing the other two ball joints (Driver's side) last night. They are REALLY stuck on there, so I sprayed some WD-40 on them. Hopefully that will loosen them just enough that after 20 whacks with the sledgehammer, they'll fall loose.

Then, it's on to the new brakes.

Wow, 2 years?

I suck.

From Blog Photos

Old brakes removed - new ones would go on, but I tore up my hand, somehow.

Sledgehammers are the ultimate tool when getting a spindle off a ball joint. You can't beat it...