barnett468 wrote:

Yes the rubber bushings do add stress to both the rod and bracket and the engineers that designed these parts knew that and accounted for it . . also this stress is minor and can easily be gauged by simply installing stock bushings and moving the strut rod arm by itself thru its range of operation.

afnid wrote:

Back to the original post, the corner-carvers thread jon linked shows where it took ~28 lbs of force to deflect the strut rod, I can believe that after seeint it first hand, it is really pretty bound up.

barnett468 wrote:

this could also be done with just the lower arm attached and its pivot bushing bolt loose so it moves freely . .

And once that bolt is retightened you have an additional bind induced by the stock vulcanized rubber LCA bushing. This was not an ideal solution. The other factor engineers had to account for was cost, bushings are an economical compromise.

barnett468 wrote:

this rubber mounted strut rod system has been proven to work for 50 years in a mustang and 60 years in t bird and 55 chev bel air etc and over several hundred thousand miles in some cases . . using a solid pivot in a strut rod on an early mustang hasn't been proven for even 1/3 rd of this amount of time . . perhaps it will work without causing any cracks for 50 or 60 years and several hundred thousand miles also but it hasn't been proven to do so yet..

Solid pivots have been used on street cars and open track race cars for decades, creating enough demand for TCP, Global West, Street or Track etc.., to produce and market them to daily drivers and racers alike. Most understand and accept there is a trade off between service life and performance. The only cracks/ failures I’ve ever seen were from folks running urethane.

barnett468 wrote:

Yes any pivot bearing will eliminate any bending stress caused by the pressure created by the strut rod bushings, however, there is increased stress from shock from a solid pivot like a rod end so which stress do you want . .

The increased shock from using a solid pivot- by far.

If it is a contest between the shock absorbing qualities of a compressed rubber doughnut vs. the fatigue induced by wrenching countless cycles of bending loads on the mount and rod I’ll sacrifice the near undetectable damping qualities of the bushing any day.　　　　

barnett468 wrote:

GPatrick wrote:

I am installing adjustable strut rods with a heim joint. I understand the potential down-side with noise and harshness but am doing it anyway. However, I have an opportunity to move the front anchor point forward far enough to return the axis of rotation to nearly the same as stock. I have the time and tools to do this and after reading on of Jon's posts above, it would appear that there would be a small benefit to retain the original geometery. Is there any down-side other than the work? I'm still dpwn to bare metal on the rotisserie so this would be the best time to have at it.

i'm not quite sure what your entire question is but one thing you can do is modify the bushing end of the strut rod with a needle bearing and sleeve or a rubber mounted bushing similar to the one in the lower arm.

Make this bushing line up with the bushing in the lower arm, meaning that the bushing will now be parallel to the frame just like the one on the lower arm is.

Now, mount it so it is also perfectly in line with the lower arm bushing.

You have now made a traditional 100 year old A arm just like the upper one is except for the bushing type.

I’m perplexed at how obtuse you’re being on this point since just a few posts back you were promoting the use of needle bearings…in a control arm?

barnett468 wrote:

The mustang II is not same as an early mustang, therefore many comparisons to an early mustang are not practical imo

I wasn’t comparing the Mustang II to the early Mustang, I was comparing the Mustang II to your suggestion.


The bottom line is that there is nothing at all unreasonably risky about using after market suspension components with solid pivots. Doing so will decrease the amount of stress on the chassis, transfer suspension loads to the spring and damper where they belong, and eliminate any dynamic alignment problems caused by bushing deflection.

Last edited by Jon Richard (2/21/2015 4:24 PM)

lowercasesteve wrote:

kdgt500 wrote:

I would never thought when I started this post, it go this long. Does anybody have a link to torque specs for the front suspension members. Somebody linked info for 65/66, but mine is a 67 and I didnt know if those specs are the same.

Look in the Mustang shop manual.  They are all there.  Mine is hidden out in the garage right now and is well thumbed.  The torque specs for the strut to lower arm is 55-70 and for the bushings it is 40-55.  That is for a 66, but since the suspensions are virtually identical, you will not go far wrong with those.

I read a thread on corner-carvers that made it sound like most known cases of broken struts were with the later cars where the entire strut rod tip is threaded making it easy to over torque.  On the 65-66 years only the end is threaded, so you can't compress the bushings endlessly because the nut bottoms out.

I have seen that 1 picture of the broken strut rod in a lot of threads.  It is apparent that the washers were installed wrong, but enough fud to make it worth finding the correct torque range.

Seems this one design change would cause there to be a different specified torque?  If they are the same, then great.  If not, it would probably be good to post the correct answer when you find it.