Lifted Eagle field test and R&D

[mach1mustang351]

That should be good for now.  I bet this brings up some questions so feel free to ask and I'll answer.  It all seems so simple posting a few pictures and short explanations but the actual process was very long and involved.  The only things I haven't really covered are the steering and I will get to that.  For now lets talk the suspension portion. 

[Draekon]

For the knuckles, did you just cut a block of aluminum down to the outer specs you needed, or did you actually mill away material on the inside to lighten it up?  More pictures of the knuckles would be great if you had them.  I'm curious as to how intricate you made them.

[rollguy]

The whole thing looks pretty cool.  Eggs to you for the great fab work.

[mach1mustang351]

For the knuckles, did you just cut a block of aluminum down to the outer specs you needed, or did you actually mill away material on the inside to lighten it up?  More pictures of the knuckles would be great if you had them.  I'm curious as to how intricate you made them.

I will absolutely get some more detailed pictures for you guys on the knuckles as this is the most interesting part of the car by a long shot.

The aluminum portion is solid.  It started life as a rectangle.  Slowly but surely it got turned into the proper width and the steps were machined in for the cut portions of the knuckle. 

Machining the aluminum piece was the easiest part.  The tough part was making the jig and machining the cut knuckle portions.  That is extremely hard material and it needed to be precise to make it all work. 

[carnuck]

Now up to this point many of you might be thinking "hey this looks pretty doable."  You're absolutely right and making these pieces isn't all that bad as long as you can cut and weld steel.  This was the third attempt at making this steer right.  If yall are following the concept everything bolted to the body becomes 3" further from things bolted to the engine cradle.  This includes the steering knuckles.  I have posted on a few threads in the past about people wanting make balljoint spacers to lift their eagles.  I have reccomended no on all of them, Why??  Because we tried that first to make this work.  This setup created obscene camber issues on suspension compression and rebound causing the vehicle to be terrible going over any sort of bump.  I revised the ball joint spacer a couple times to try and make the problem go away.  No luck.  So what did we do... my buddy Mike and I made some knuckled that are 3" longer. 

This is what puts the project out of reach.  We worked as machinests in the past and had access to the equipment to make this happen.  The costs of having someone do this for you, if they would even accept the job, are going to be way too high to make it worth it.  The amount of hours spent on our knuckles was crazy.  Knuckles were cut.  Hours were spent making a jig to hold the knuckled while it was milled to perfection.  The other end was machined then the spacer piece was machined using aircraft grade billet aluminum.  The spacers were then machined to tight tollerences on bolt holes to ensure a tight fit when all pieces were bolted together.  We used aircraft grade fasteners and put them together.  This solved our camber issues. And not to sound like I am tooting my own horn, when installed and taken to the alignment shop there were no camber adjustments required as the control arms weren't removed.  Very tight and accurate machining.  My buddy Mike hit a homer here.







The stepped portion of the aluminum fit into machined steps in the cut knuckle sections to keep them aligned and to keep them from moving during driving situations. 

That was pretty much how I did my design except that instead of making upper balljoint spacers, new upper arms that dropped down 2-3" more (depending on the lift. Mine was 2" Steel rectangular tube between the frame and engine crossbar)
    And using the steering box drop plate from an early FSJ helped too (I had to make a plate for the idler arm on the other side)

[mach1mustang351]

So you built a new upper control arm??  This was a plan of mine as well but I decided on this plan for serviceability of the car.  With this setup I modified a non wear part so balljoints, bushings etc are all stock.  I did have to drop the steering gear and the idler.  I made plates to make this happen as well.  I would love to see your pics to see your version. 

[mach1mustang351]

That was pretty much how I did my design except that instead of making upper balljoint spacers, new upper arms that dropped down 2-3" more (depending on the lift. Mine was 2" Steel rectangular tube between the frame and engine crossbar)
    And using the steering box drop plate from an early FSJ helped too (I had to make a plate for the idler arm on the other side)
[/quote]

And I wouldn't consider this design a ball joint spacer as the balljoint still bolts in the stock position on the control arm.  It is more like buying a drop spindle for the truck applications.

[carnuck]

Unfortunately I didn't build the arms. Didn't have the money or equipment to do so. Ball joint spacers were also tried on Cam Brown's car (He was my ex-wife's neighbor) He ended up putting non-flared Concord fenders to clear the 33/9.50/15s in front.

[mick]

Excellent work! 

[mach1mustang351]

Excellent work! 

Thanks!!! I appreciate it.  The fun fact is that it is my daily driver and I use it for work as well. 

[mick]

Actually I should say more...I'm DAMM impressed!  It looks great, the ride height is spot on, and you put tons of thought and effort into it.  wow is all I can say.

[mach1mustang351]

Actually I should say more...I'm DAMM impressed!  It looks great, the ride height is spot on, and you put tons of thought and effort into it.  wow is all I can say.

Mick,

That means a lot to me because I was admiring your wagon last week wondering why I didn't use my time and effort to go solid axle in the same way you did.  I guess the grass is always greener on the other side   If you ever want to trade let me know.

[mach1mustang351]

Thought I'd add some to my thread here.  I found some pics I took of the cross member build to make the 4.0/AX15 swap work.  This setup worked a lot better than my welded extension to the stock cross member that proceeded to bend and make all kinds of noise. 

[carnuck]

Here's another thought I was working on. Rathen than drop the motor and trans down, what about new motor mount plates on the engine and lowering the axle with the cross member?

[mach1mustang351]

Here's another thought I was working on. Rathen than drop the motor and trans down, what about new motor mount plates on the engine and lowering the axle with the cross member?

You could but then you would still have the steering knuckle issue because the crossmember (lower control arm mounts to it) drops down and the upper control arm stays in the same place.  the engine dropping down with the trans creates hardly and extra issues.  The HUGE issue is the knuckle.