As the title suggests, I went through completely overhauling the front suspension and upgraded the brakes earlier this year, but ended up with some extreme positive camber, and I am just now getting around to trying to sort this mess out. Some specs follow.
'83 Tbird Heritage 5.0
Original K-frame
Original (I assume) Lower control arms
'88 TC salvaged spindles
'88 TC new replacement struts
'83 new strut mounts
All this added up to uncorrectable positive camber for some reason. I think I may have missed a step somewhere, even though I researched the swap/upgrade exhaustively.
The earliest aerobirds had short lower control arms identical to the Mustangs, as I recall, but I do not recall reading that I would have to swap lowers to the longer later aerobird style.
Do I need to obtain the later, longer lower control arms? Replace the K-frame? Sacrifice a chicken? Or is this not my fault for missing some detail, and something weird is going on?
From what I remember even the factory style strut mounts are left/right oriented so make sure you got that correct. If that is correct then I would suggest that you post up the alignment specs as that will help to determine how far out of whack it is. If everything is installed correctly and you still have the positive camber then you have three choices. One is to simply slot the struts and bring the camber in that way and this will get rotten food thrown at me but its been done and will work if this is not a track car. Second, would be to try the SN95 lower control arms which are identical to the 87-88 turbo coupe lower control arms. This will push the bottom of the tire out and may fix the problem. Last but not least is getting a set of Maximum Motorsports caster camber plates and see if that will fix the issue.
My whole problem with this is that if the only thing you changed to upgrade to the larger spindles to get the 11" brakes was the spindle, strut, and strut mounts then the problem lies in the parts and/or how the parts were installed not the K-member, lower control arms or anything else that was on the car prior to the new parts being installed.
I did the 11 inch brake conversion on my 84. I ended up with extreme camber also. I ended up ordering MM caster camber plates and was able to get it aligned. I however believe the 11 inch conversion isn't meant to be because I now notice a lot of sway/sawing on the highway.
this is the thread I made about my experience.
http://www.foxtbirdcougarforums.com/showthread.php?39158-Help-Please-11-inch-brake-upgrade-gone-bad&highlight=camber (http://"http://www.foxtbirdcougarforums.com/showthread.php?39158-Help-Please-11-inch-brake-upgrade-gone-bad&highlight=camber")
The wandering you are getting can be three things...tires, steering components worn, or bump steer. Too many of us have done this conversion and had excellent results so I would suggest some investigating.
Wider tires also follow cracks and deformations in the road much more the. Skinnier tires. When I went from 195/60's to 235/60's it was a big difference.
I'm following this closely, as I just upgraded my front brakes( booster, MC as well )... I'm also having camber issues. I have ordered CC adjustable plates from MM and hope this will correct my problem. On another note it seems now the drivers side is a little lower than the passenger side? That wasn't the case before the swap. Will post more after plates are installed.
You guys will have to take me at my word for this, and it being the Internet, I know how far from reality some claims can be, but I am a competent mechanic that has made most of his way through life turning a wrench. I definitely don't know everything there is to know about cars, and I never will, but at 40 years of age, I still love figuring this kind of stuff out and fixing it.
So, I am confident that the components are assembled properly. I really can't say that this car had proper alignment when I got it. It sort of drove straight, but ate tires like crazy. I bought a set of half-used Eagle GTs for it, marking probably the first time in years that the car hasn't been rolling on four completely mismatched tires, and promptly took it in for an alignment. (I don't generally do allignments, as I dont have the equipment, and it's a better use of my time to pay a tire shop $60 to do it than it is for me to run around my car with a measuring tape, plumbbob, and string tied to jack stands for two hours.) The alignment shop let me know it was way out of spec, with a ton of negative camber on the passenger wheel, and ridiculous caster as well.
I put it on a lift for inspection. Both control arms looked good, with no apparent signs of stress or bends. They were also both suspiciously holding on to black rattle can paint, and had ball joints which were obviously fresher than the rest of the front end components. The passenger spindle was clearly bent, so that is when I went ahead and installed the later turbo coupe spindles and upgraded brakes. I did not touch suspension or steering parts at that time, and only set the toe to "eh, it goes sort of straight" specs, then gingerly drove it for a while. I am uncertain if the camber was super positive at that point, but I am inclined to guess that it was. I do know that the caster improved drastically, as the wheel actually became centered in the the wheel well, where it was previously closer to the rear of the fender than the front.
Fast forward a bit, and I am ready to replace the steering, suspension, and whatever else is substandard. I had some trouble finding strut mounts through my usual sources, but eventually found some at Oreilly. Now, this is interesting, and if I understand Aerocoupe correctly, this might be an issue. The strut mounts, ordered for an '83 Heritage 5.0, were sold to me as a one part fits both sides kind of deal. If they were left/right specific originally, then maybe that's the issue? I will have to look the originals over closely, but the new mounts I received looked pretty symetrical, and of course the camber problem is identical on both sides of the car, so I obviously did not receive two lefts, or two rights.
I otherwise came to the same general conclusions as ways to correct the issue; caster/camber plates, slotting the strut mount holes (yuck), or slightly longer control arms to push the wheel back out.
I will examine things a bit further now that I know I didn't miss some obvious fact like my early car needing the control arms replaced for the 11" brake swap. Also, as much as I hate running string all over, I may need to do that to figure out how the track width is matching up front to rear, so I know whether to move the bottom of the wheel out, or the top of the wheel in.
Thanks for the help so far, everyone!
ISTLCRUZ, I would be very interested to hear your take on the MM caster/camber plates when you get them. I am almost inclined to buy them just for the advantage of having an easy to set adjustment point. The stock arrangement leaves much to be desired, in my opinion. Also, let's be honest, they just look cool. Heh.
As for the height issue, did you by any chance not get one of the springs situated in the correct orientation on the control arm?
87-88 cars use longer control arms and have a tighter turning radius. 83-85 us basically Mustang width and control arms and 86 use a unique kmember. My guess is that it has to do with the 83 vs 87-88 apindles. I'd think it would be easy to measure if you had both on a bench.
Most of the 11 86-87 cars I've owned ate front tires like crazy and alignment shops all told me it was in spec.
Well I did a lot more digging on this as it was killing me over the holiday weekend and I found this reference to the spindle change:
[COLOR="#0000FF"]All 1984 1/2-and-later V-8 Mustangs were originally fitted with gas-charged front struts. When Ford fitted 1987 Mustangs with revised struts and spindles, the Fox cars gained 1/2 inch additional suspension travel and more camber for improved tracking at speed. (The spindle revision produces the camber; the strut increases the travel.) A front stabilizer bar was always standard Mustang equipment.[/COLOR]
They say more camber but do not specify if it is positive or negative and I cannot find anything to back this up. It is still very bizarre that this is an issue on the Fox Birds when this is the first thing you do to a 10" brake Mustang to go to the larger 11" brakes and better brake pad compounds that the V8 calipers offer. I know several folks here have swapped up to the TC or V8 Mustang spindles and have not had issues.
I will do some more research on the left/right thing on the strut mounts if time allows today or tomorrow.
The strut mounts are not side-specific for these cars. One part number fits both sides.
It's been so long since I messed with an 11" spindle/brake upgrade on one of these things, that I'm having a hard time remembering if I had this issue or not. I know I've done it a few times.
Caster/camber plates should help.
You could also slot the spindle attachment holes on the struts. Slot the lower one out, away from the strut body, or slot the upper inwards towards the strut body (depending on how much room you have there) and put some more negative camber in by pulling out on the lower part of the assembly and then tighten it down. This should allow adjustment up top when trying to set the alignment. I've done this numerous times on several cars.
Well, I measured a bit, and darned if it doesn't seem like the original control arms are around 3/4" shorter than they need to be to get to around zero camber. So, I did a little reconnaissance at the local self-serve yard today, and their are several SN95 Mustangs there. I'm going to grab some control arms off one of them, and throw them on the 'Bird.
But first, I need to replace the broken flexplate on my '02 F-150 that I bought when I got irritated with the Thunderbird for developing - get this - a cracked flexplate. Huh. Seems like my destiny somehow revolves around failed flexplates this year.
3/4" is also the difference between 83-86 arms and 87-88 arms. Doing a flex plate sucks, but at least they aren't too expensive.
There is a thread floating around with a bunch of K-Member/suspension measurements. IIRC, the 87-88 FLCA mounts were moved inboard, as the overall track width didn't increase. This doesn't mean that the geometry of the strut axis to the wheel axis wasn't altered over the 10" brake stuff.
The overall length of the 87-88 arms is the same as the 94-04 Mustang arms.
Be mindful of fender clearance, if you push the whole lot out with longer arms.
My 83 is running stock LCA with 94-95 spindles. Fender clearance is limited with 245/45 tires.
I know this is not the same as what is being dealt with in this thread being that it is on a Mustang and going from Fox to SN95 spindles but the issue is similar and I just wanted to show that the CC plates will most likely correct your problem thus negating the need to swap LCA's. When installing 94-95 or 96-04 Mustang spindles on a Fox Mustang with Fox length LCA's you will get positive camber according to Maximum Motorsports. I took this straight off their site:
[COLOR="#0000FF"]•1994-04 spindles were designed for a car that has longer front control arms than those of a Fox chassis Mustang. When installed on a 1987-93 Mustang with Fox length control arms, they will cause the camber setting to immediately become more positive: by 1.7 degrees with the 1994-95 spindle, and 1.3 degrees with the 1996-04 spindle. This happens because the bottom of the spindle, where the ball joint attaches, is pulled inboard nearly 3/4" by the shorter Fox control arm, from where it would be located with a 1994-04 length control arm and k-member.
•The increased camber adjustability provided by Maximum Motorsports Caster/Camber Plates will allow proper alignment for a street-driven car.
•To gain additional negative camber, as needed for a competition car, there are several options: One mounting hole in each strut can be slotted horizontally, allowing the top of the spindle to be tipped inboard, causing more negative camber; new mounting holes may be drilled in the strut tower, to allow moving the Caster/Camber Plate assembly inboard; or the longer 1994-04 front control arms may be installed.[/COLOR]
Just thought I would through this out there as when I did my swap to 11" brakes I has CC plates on the car so I never had the issue.
Looking over your parts list, I'd say this pos camber issue may be the result of the struts you used. More specifically, the mounting tab placement or the placement of the holes in those mounting tabs for the spindle to strut bolts.
Assuming of course you didnt have the camber issue before, and you didnt change anything with the control arms, the strut towers or the Kmember that would effect track width or camber, so that leaves us with the spindles and the struts as suspects since they are the parts being changed.
Obviously the angle that the spindle, and moving further up, the strut, are going to be critical to you having what you want which is a little bit of negative camber. The camber is largely built in to the parts being used unless you slot the strut's mounting holes as Chuck suggested or the ones on the car's actual strut towers some more, and/or get the MM camber plates. So the struts/spindles need to be correct or you are just modifying and fighting to make the incorrect parts work well enough to get the camber back into the negative.
Chuck is right about the 87/8 Kmember having LCA pickup points more inboard as used with the 13.75" control arms (as measured from centerline of ball joint stud to CL of control arm chassis mounting bolts at the Kmember, the earlier 83-6 Tbird/Cougar arms measure out at 13"). Also, the 11" TC rotors also have a thicker hat that pushes the wheels outboard somewhat when compared to using the 11" 87-93 Mustang GT rotors.
When looking at various Fox chassis struts from various manufacturers and different vehicle applications it is apparent that where the strut to spindle mounting tabs are mounted (vertically speaking) up or down the strut body, varies quite a bit in my experience. As does the clearance between the strut body and the spindle's strut mounting pad..some being very close and some having some gap.
Its important to compare these things when swapping aftermarket or SN95 struts,etc onto earlier foxbody cars because these little differences can sometimes create some not so little changes once the wheels go on and the car is set back down on the driveway.
TLDR;: If you dont mistakenly have some weird spindles that have an altered angle for the lower strut mounts I'm guessing that you'll find your problem is with the struts themselves.
Well, eyeing the struts, I don't think simply slotting them would give the required camber correction, but I would definitely gain a little. There isn't a ton of space between the back side of the spindle and the brackets welded to the strut assemblies. I used cheap 87-88 Monroe struts from O'reilly, just to have unblown struts for now, intending to use Mustang struts of some sort with the Monroe spacers at a later date.
I think I will try out the SN95 control arms, just because I want to get away from the stock control arms with horribly ovalled out swar bar link holes.
This is one of those instances where there really is more than one way to skin a cat, eh?
Ok, just be mindful that the SN95 balljoint stud is shorter and slightly different thickness taper I believe than the ones used before '94 on the 87-93 Mustangs. I've had new replacement SN95 balljoints pressed into the 87-93 Mustang control arms when swapping to SN95 spindles on a 92 Mustang and because the original balljoints were pretty beat up anyways. So the old or new style balljoints can be installed in either length control arm, but the balljoint and spindle combination needs to be the same to fit together right.
Hope you dont have wider, aftermarket rims unless they have some healthy positive offset. 3/4" doesnt sound like much but it does start pushing the wheels towards the edge of the fenders or past if you have the 9" wide 4 lug Cobra Rs or something like them.
Good luck with it !
Then slot the bottom hole outboard. It's not going to take too much adjustment. You're only talking a couple degrees at the most.
SN-95 ball joints won't work with Fox spindles. The stud is too short. Something to keep in mind.
You can go the opposite (Fox ball joint/SN-95 spindle) with spacers under the nut.
Hi Chuck, yeah I know, that is what I was trying to get across, that he'd have to take the junkyard SN95 control arms somewhere to have the balljoints pressed out and some Fox balljoints pressed in to the SN95 arms if he was using the Fox spindle. It was late and I was beat, sorry if I was unclear.
Its been a while ago, but on my 87 TC with SN95 brake swap I think I ended up with from what I can remember:
>stock 87 TC Kmember with engine mount pads removed and Mustang style pads welded in to set engine back 1/2" and down 3/8".
>stock control arms with balljoints replaced with new SN95 ones and I think Energy Susp bushings.
>Eibach progressive rate springs off wrecked 95 Mustang Gt
>Koni Reds with MM caster/camber plates.
I'm running '87-'88 17" TC snowflakes. It seems to have plenty of space.
Hmm, so I need to put fox ball joints in the SN95 control arms. Good to know. I can do that easily enough if it comes to swapping control arms, as I have a 20-ton press in my shop.
I will try slotting the lower strut holes and see how much adjustment I can get out of it, just because I am curious. I can always pull the stock control arms and weld up the worn end link holes if it looks like I can get the required adjustment from slotting the struts. Knowing me, I'll end up powder coating them, too.
Thanks for the wealth of info so far, folks. I really appreciate it!
Yeah the snowflakes have more positive offset so that'll help keep them tucked inside the fender if you go to longer SN95 arms. Are u running rear disc brakes ?
Double-fired that post, sorry.
If you bought the basic Monroe's and it was for your 83 Heritage then there may be an issue. The struts for the 83 measure 19-1/2" fully extended and 14" compressed giving a 5-1/2" stroke. The struts for an 87-93 GT Mustang or 87-88 Thunderbird Sport measure 20-1/8" fully extended and 13-5/8" compressed giving a 6-1/2" stroke. Remember the Turbo Coupe struts are a different animal so they have a different part number so I left them out of the comparison. My suggestion would be to take the ones you bought back and see if there is a measureable difference in how they mount to the spindle like Vintage has been shining the light on. This combined with the stroke length difference and the Mustang struts will not need the shims to bolt to the spindle would make for a much better package up front that is engineered to go with the spindles.
I checked the part numbers between the 87-88 Turbo Coupe, 87-88 Sport, and the 83 Base Heritage and the strut mounts are no different and are not left / right dependent as Chuck pointed out.
When swapping the spindles to 11 inch the strut mounting changes. You need either washers to put in place of gap or narrow mounting struts. I went with SN-95 struts on my 83 bird but i think that is why it sways on the highway.
The width has nothing to do with the camber gain the poster is having.
The SN-95 struts are also not causing your "sway", unless they are just worn out.
Oh boy. I believe that I ordered and received 87-88 TC front struts, but perhaps I brainfarted and got them for the '83 by accident. Hmm. Good catch. If they are incorrect, I am likely stuck with them at this point. Pretty sure I recycled the boxes. If I need to swap them out, I am certain someone here can make use of them, so it shouldn't be hard to gift them to someone that can use them.
Heh. Can't say I have ever seen wheels alter caster. Glad to see I am not the only person that suffers ftom brain farts around here. :)
It's not a factor for this thread, but since it was asked, I am in fact running the 8.8" 3.73 disc brake rear from the same '87 I pulled the spindles from. You gotta love it when the parts you want are actually in the yard on a half-price weekend. I plan to pull it apart soon to address the leaking seals, and will sandblast and paint it with black epoxy while am at it.
Also unrelated, but I'm still working on the truck. Flex plate took out the tranny pump seal and bushing from the converter flailing around, so I had to drain and drop the whole thing. The PO didnt have any locating dowels between the engine, tranny, and transfer case. I sure am glad I got a killer deal on that thing, but I'm working for it, now. Lol!