Sorry I missed all of the west coast listers who went to Palo Alto. I
opened up a can of worms when I decided to rebuild my Midget's front
suspension. The car would have been done, but the wheel bearings were bad,
so I wrapped up what I could on Thursday night, bit the bullet, and ordered
the Timpkin roller bearing setup. Since I had Sunday off anyway, I didn't
let the day go to waste. I took the Falcon to the all Ford meet at the
Great Mall of the Bay Area, in Milpitas, formerly the Ford plant where my
Falcon was born. Lots of nice Fords, a good mix. Heavy on the Mustangs, 3
Skyliners, only two Torinos. If people think we have some kind of weird
thing going on with our obsession with LBC's, they should meet the guy who
had the tricked out Ford Festiva, or the group of Merkur owners... Some
cars should just be allowed to die in peace.
Back to the spridget stuff. The bearings came in today, so I was cleaning
up my wire wheel hubs. Well those little pictures that you compare the
splines to... The left front hub was so badly worn it would cut your finger
if you ran it across the splines. Luckily I had a spare hub in much better
shape with some minor damage to the threaded portion. I was able to file
away the thread damage. I don't know why the left hub was so much more worn
than the right one. Got the whole thing back together and took it for a
spin. Man it handles nice now. Major grin from ear to ear! No more clunks
in the front suspension, and tight, ooh baby turns on a coin.
Here is the setup as it stands: Rebuilt upper shocks on camber plates, new
a-arms, offset poly upper trunion bushings, poly a-arm bushings, new
kingpins, new fulcrum pins, 3/4" front sway bar with poly bushings, 340 lb.
springs. I removed the spring hat shims, as the prior ride height was too
low for street use. Rear of the car has the 1" lower springs, spax tube
shock conversion, and a 5/8" anti-sway bar. Tires are 175/60R13's on 4.5"
wire wheels.
Problems found/corrected with this service: Cracked left A-arm along sway
bar mounting holes, worn a-arm bushings, seriously worn outer fulcrum pin
threads in a-arms, worn king pin bushings, loose left wheel bearings,
seriously worn left hub splines.
Now that it's together, I can't wait for a good mountain blast!
David Riker
74 Midget
63 Falcon
70 Torino
http://personalweb.sunset.net/~davidr
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