Suspension

I had a batch of suspension parts ready to go for the rat rod project, but since that was cancelled they were free to use on this car.

If memory serves the suspension parts on this table are the same for any '65-'68 Ford full size (3rd generation) regardless of engine or options. All the rubber bushings and ball joints are Moog. I've learned my lesson with other brands. I try to powder items that will fit in my oven, otherwise if they are too big or sensitive to heat they received POR 15. The front upper and lower control arms are powder coated but the other items were just too long.

This is one of the caveats to the suspension. This rear upper control arm fits 1965-1966. It will also fit '67 and '68 but in '67 the bushings were enlarged and so was the arm. Obviously a '67-'68 arm will not fit on a '65-'66.

The bushings have to come from Rare Parts as them seem to be the only source and pretty pricey at ~90 dollars for the set.

Powder coated as well.

Just to reiterate, the parts that will be used that came specifically off the XL package car are the engine perches (390) and coil springs. The donor frame was from a Challenger 289 car and the engine perches are different for a Windsor engine. The coil springs from the XL package car are calibrated for XL package, engine and accessories ordered on that car so are imperative to use to get the ride height correct.

I didn't think I had any pictures of rebuilding the above suspension pieces but I found a few.

They were well worn from use and age.

Some of the bushings like this one weren't too bad, but still they had to come out to treat the arm so they were all replaced.

Before I use to struggle with removing old bushings, but I made some hokey little bits and bobs and was able to easily press the old ones out quickly.

like so

Occasionally I had a bushing press out its innards first then the shell just popped out, but for the most part they popped out as a whole.

The inner and outer tie rod along with the sleeve would all be replaced however the centre link needs to be reused so the old tie rods need to come off.

This is the portion that I really do not like, that is drilling out these pressed riveted ball joints. A word of caution the centre of the head here is not the centre of the shank, it's mushed over so only drill deep enough to remove the head and not into the arm.

I used a drill press as it's just easier.

Once the head pops off I used an air hammer to drive the shank through and out.

You can see even though I centre drilled the head it's offset. If you drill all the way through would have drilled into the control arm and elongated the holes. And that is nicht sehr gut.

Nothing worse than old sloppy parts.... Don't read into that.

The upper control arms were no better. I used the same techniques to take these apart.

All prepped for paint or powder coat.

Unfortunately I don't have any more pictures of the assembly. But I think you get the idea.

Note from a knowledgeable friend: I have seen transmission bands that were made floppy. Just on the C-4. The reason for a floppy band was to replace the band "in car". A tech that used to work for me showed me how to do this. (The C-6 may be the same way, just don't know. He was an awesome transmission tech. He did a lot of transmission work on all kinds of vehicles for me. However he had a hard time staying away from the bottle.