Sounds like you was about to "get busy dying " but you outsmarted fate itself. I'm going to check my nuts!...tomorrow...in the garage...the ones on the car.

my hero  ?? Double entendre and a little  innuendo    nice work,  

Aren't those nuts supposed to be the Stover style lock nuts?  They are a pain to use in tight spaces, but they shouldn't come loose!

TimC wrote:

Aren't those nuts supposed to be the Stover style lock nuts?  They are a pain to use in tight spaces, but they shouldn't come loose!

 
That's what I use. A pain yes, but I wouldn't do it any other way.

MS wrote:

I see things a little different. The nuts are still just as tight as they were when installed, but the greasy, or worse, taped together, shims have managed to move out of position.

When a thick stack of shims is installed, only one edge of the bolted connection is clamped tight. The other edge is loose to begin with. The only way to avoid that is to tightem them so tight that the pivot shaft bends enough to tighten flat. That just doesn’t happen. The shim stacks need to be about equal thickness in order to survive. Since we like additional caster with today’s tire and wheel designs, the front bolt usually gets more shims than the rear stack. That, along with a stack of mismatched shims (whatever the alignment guy could get his hands on) and topped off with a don’t care attitude about how the shims fit, will allow them to squirm out of position. Taping them together with electrical tape or applying grease to hold them in position until tightened are sure to let them come loose.

A big help to cure this issue would be a tapered spacer to go between the bushing shaft and the shock tower. To install one, you would need to align it, measure the angle, and then install the tapered spacer.
A more perfect fix is to rotate the uca shaft 90 degrees and install the bolts in slotted holes. (Like a Mustang II front end used). That would allow adjustment without having to put the shaft in a bind. I drew up a design for this about ten years ago, bought the materials to do it and then got too lazy to build it.

If using a stock type uca, that seems to be the best way to fix it. Later models used adjustable lower strut rods and control arms, which is also a possibility for retrofit to cure the problem.

Soooooo putting lock-tite on the bolts did ...'absolutely nuth'in!' (say it-say it-say it again...umppp good god ya'll)
What you said make sense though.
6s6

I agree with MS as to the primary cause being the additional caster we want to get in a design that was never meant to have more than a couple of degrees.  This became obvious to me when I aligned the car last week and it was plain to see that with the stock setup the shims would never be properly clamped between the tower and the UCA shaft.   I made notes of the shim pack thicknesses and plan to make some proper wedges to replace most of the shims...leaving just enough for fine tuning.    In the mean time I'll be checking my nuts regularly.

BB

I wish someone would stamp some inexpensive offset UCA's.  I have offset ones tubular ones on my car, but I really think some stock appearing stamped ones that had the ball joint offset to the rear of the car about .3-.4" would sell.  

Shims are a pain.

I had an idea a while back that as usual, I never did anything with.  If I remember my research correctly, there are some models of Jeeps that have alignment problems.  And the taper of the ball joint was the same.  This was back when we all used to discuss modifying everything, mind you, but I had thought what if a person could modify the control arm to accept those offset ball joints they make for the Jeep?  That could be used in a couple of different ways to alleviate caster or camber issues.   That said, I was also always intrigued by Mustang Steve's idea of modifying the inner shock tower with a way to have the shafts bolt on like a Mustang II.  I gave that one lots of thought, and while I used to like to experiment and build shiz, I am not an engineer, and gave that one up.  

Quite honestly, given all the health issues Ive had to deal with since 2010, Id be happy just to have it all put together in nice stock form(ish).  That is why I bought some Moog lower control arms and new shafts and ball joints and just decided to quit overthinking it.    

just weld the friggin bolt, and throw an offset wrench in the trunk, and pray it will be OK,   Probably about the same odds, as all the other things we take for granted and don't think about driving or riding in an early Mustang.  

Mochaman wrote:

I know when working in high vibration areas of aircraft we would use safety wire to keep everything from loosening up. Easy to drill some small .032 holes in Nuts or bolts heads to make this happen. Low cost for the safety wire and the drill bits.

I am a firm believer in safety wire Ed (Machoman) but good Lord how many vertebrae would you fracture installing it in this location. Oh, you are much younger than me. 
 

Mochaman wrote:

I know when working in high vibration areas of aircraft we would use safety wire to keep everything from loosening up. Easy to drill some small .032 holes in Nuts or bolts heads to make this happen. Low cost for the safety wire and the drill bits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_wire​

After MS's explanation of "HOW" the nutz get loose the  safety war won't work!  Like the old political  statement to Bush the elder..."it's the economy, stupid"!............Its the shims Mochaman!
They work loose /start falling out which leaves all kindza slack between the nut and studs. NOT one of Fordz better ideaz.
6s6 
 

Alan wrote:

Didn't you lose your nutzz before 6S6?  I seem to remember something about the strut rods, cause I immediately went out and double nutted mine.

HEY!!! great recall!
Shore did....happened right out side of Fort Smith Ark. Scary feel'in!

daily driver wrote:

Are yall talking about the two 3/4" nuts in the shock towers  that bolts the upper control arm?

Yes.  I also experienced this when I found shims on the frame “shim shelf” some years ago.