Dave, I scrapped the idea of using the Civic's Rack due to too much line interference. I was able to exchange it with a Cavalier's Rack at the yard. I have to two questions for you: 1. What is the height of your bracket where you mount the inner tie rod? Is it same as the original height of the center link measured from the floor? 2. Did you ever try to use the original Cavalier's tie rods? I noticed that he overall width is about same and the outer tie rods fits perfectly in the Maverick spindle (disk brake). I am planning to use the Cavaliers passenger side inner rods for both left & right side. Thanks Waid
Waid, I measured from the center of the bolt that holds the tie rod to the bracket, to a level line from the bottom edge of the belly bar, and got 2 inches, so the c/l of the bolts are 2" above the bottom edge of the belly bar. Hope that makes sense. And I checked out the stock cavalier tierods and you might give that a try, there are two different shaped tie rods and I think if you used the straight one(you will need 2 of those)it might work pretty good. I never thought about using those, might just be the "ticket"!!
Dave, My 64 Falcon's engine bay is very tight. Therefore, I put the engine in with headers and then I made my brackets. I am planning to mount the inner tie rod on the bracket at same height (measured from the floor) as where the center link was. Yes you are correct about differences between Cavaliers left and right inner tie rods. The drivers side has a large bend to clear the brake master cylinder. However, the passenger side can be mounted on drivers side! I test fitted the outer tie rods and they fit very well in the Granada's Spindles. Not only I have a Cavalier's Rack, I also have 1995 Saab 900 rack! Saab was owned by GM and Saab 900 was based on one of GM's cars and it used two different rack. The base used the Saginaw rack which is same as the Cavalier. The higher trim model with a V6 used a rack that was made by ZF of Germany is the best rack that you can get that is center drive. Those The mounting points are same as the Saginaw rack. FYI - Ford also used ZF rack in the Taurus SHO only. Waid
Here is the pics pics of the ZF rack. Looks like a very nice unit with all banjo fittings, all aluminum and no steel tube that rust out! The rack has same size ports as the cavalier.
Here is a pic and size of the outer tie rods for Maverick/Granada vs. Cavalier. Oh yeh, I used some left over Explorer 5.0 Motor Mount Plates to make my rack mounts!
