My 72 Comet Build.....

Nice job looks awesome!

 

Thanks.....

 

Went to the shop yesterday thinking I would get it on the suspension, modify the steering column with a bearing and make the steering shaft(NOT!!!!!)..... I made some spacers for the top of the struts during the week, so I test fit the struts with them and I still wasn't in the center of the strut travel..... I didn't figure the new spacers were going to quite get it where I need it to be, it did make an improvement though..... So I remove the struts from the spindle, mark them up and mill slot upward 3/8" so I can slide the struts down on the spindle..... This worked out well, the struts have 6.25" total travel..... After spacers and slotting the struts I have 3.o62" downward and 3.187" upward travels from my established ride height..... I am very happy with that..... Everything going well so far on Saturday......

Here is the a pic of a strut in the mill, and a side by side of a slotted and non slotted struts.....





Next thing was to install the rack and pinion assembly, this is where it all starts to go wrong..... The rack bolted in fine, so I check the fit on the pass side with the bump steer kit( no surprise I need to cut an inch off the inner tie rods, my car is just over 2" narrower in the track width the a fox Mustang - all steering components are fox Mustang )..... So I cut the inner tie rods, reinstall the rack - center the rack in it's travel and hook up the pass side(everything looks good)..... I set the length on the driver side the same and hook it up(problem is the rotor on this sit is pointed out a good amount)..... Upon further examination the rack is off center to the driver side approximately 3/4", at this point I am WTF..... I was pissed off and just had to get away from it for the day.....

I did some research Sat afternoon, from what I could tell in all the pic's I could find of the AJE k-members this is how all the newest ones are..... I guess nobody else checks things to the extent I do, I am really a pain in my own ass sometimes..... This is a big problem to me and something I must address..... I went back to the shop this morning and removed the boots of the inner joints on the rack assembly so I could check things more accurately, I verified I had the rack at the center of it's travel..... Sure enough I could easily see both inner tie rod pivot points were obviously to the left of the lower control arm pivot points..... After measuring everything there is a 1.5" difference from one side to the other, the rack definitely needs to go 3/4" to the right so it will be properly centered..... So I said F it and remove the k-member and rack once again, I got it up on the bench and rechecked it again coming to the same conclusion.....

At this point I know the motor was probably not going to be mounted in the position I want it to be..... I was going to give there position a try because they were there, but what the hell - I cut the motor mounts off the k-member and I will get it mounted how I want it when the time comes..... Next I drilled new mounting holes for the rack, which was no big deal..... The next problem is to deal with the old mounting holes which right next to the new ones, on the back side of the tube I made a reinforcement plate with 1 hole in the center of it..... Bolted it in position on the k-member and weld them to it..... Next weekend I will make some for the front of the tube and weld them to it also..... Rant over!!!!!(for now anyways).....

Here if you look at the inner tie rods you can see the rack is clearly shifter towards the driver side.....




Here I drilled new mounting holes in the k-member for the rack, and then where I made and welded on the reinforcement plates to the backside of the tube.....

 

I admire your tenacity. Always making progress!!

 

Thanks!!!!!

 

I got the front rack mount reinforcement plates made and installed this morning..... Then I put the k-member back in once again, the rack I properly centered now..... I put the boots back on the ends of the rack and remounted..... The QA1 bumpsteer kit I got is not long enough to get the proper tie rod angle, I am weighing my options for this one.....
Now the other problem I figured I was going to have, the bottom of the brake caliper at the attaching bolt will hit the rear bar of the lower control arm on the back side at maximum turn point..... It doesn't hit by much but it does hit, I will have to make a couple control arm mods now?????

Here is the front rack mount reinforcement plate I made and then it welded in place.....





Here with the k-member/rack bolted back in you can see it is centered.....




Here the front wheels are mocked up so I could set toe in and check change through the range of travel.....

 

I put a brake caliper on the driver side this morning so I could check the clearance on the back side of the control arm..... Big surprise it hit and I still had a quarter turn to go on the racks pinion....




So I marked up the driver side control arm, took it off and cut a big notch in the back tube..... Then I put it back on and checked the clearance.....





Since the clearance didn't look to bad I removed it, I adjusted the notch, made a boxing plate for it, tacked it in place and then tried the control arm again..... It has some clearance now but the lower caliper bolt is a little to close..... I am going to get some button head bolts to replace the lower caliper bolt with, then it should have an acceptable amount of clearance.....





Last thing I did today was to remove both control arms and I made a cardboard pattern for a reinforcement plate to weld in the control arm..... I am also going to order a UPR extreme bump steer kit(it has a longer stud to should work better for my application).....

 

Wow, nice job notching that control arm! After you are done with it I'm sure it will be stronger than it was originally anyway.

 

Thanks..... I'm not sure if it will be stronger then it was, but I know it will be plenty strong enough.....

 

Today was a good progress day for a change..... I fitted the reinforcement plat in the driver side control arm and then welded everything up..... Next I notched the pass side control arm, made the side filler and fitted the reinforcement plate, then welded it all up..... I installed the control arms, then change the pins for the bump steer kit.....

I set up the spacers on the bump steer kit so that the tie rod was parallel to the control arm..... That did not work(at ride height I set the toe at zero - then jacked the car up 3.25" which is ride at the top of the suspension and the toe there was in 15/16" - Then I let the car all the way down to the bottom of the suspension which 3.125" lower then ride height and the toe there was out 5/8")..... I had to look everything over for a little while and I realized that the bottom of the control arm is not correct plain for the pivot points of it..... There is an imaginary line from center of the inner bushing through the ball joint pivot point which actually works out to be just above the top of the tube on the control arm..... So I took a 3/8" spacer out of the bump steer on both sides(put the car back at ride height and set the toe at zero again - jacked it up 3.25" again and the toe was down to 7/16" in, getting there) - I removed another 1/4" of spacer out of the bump steer(put the car back at ride height and reset the toe to zero - jacked it up to the top again and the to was maybe 1/32" - so I let the car all the way down and the toe was out less then 1/32") - I am very happy with these results, once the car is back together I will recheck this and make one piece spacers that are the correct height.....
I also checked the caliper clearance at the back of the control arms, it now has more then 1/4" clearance..... I picked all the tools up around the car, put the front springs in then got the car off the blocks and back on it's suspension for the first time in a quite a while.....

Here is the progress on the control arms.....






Here is the difference in the pins on the 2 bump steer kits.....




Here is the clearance at ride height between the brake calipers and control arms.....





Here you can see the difference in the angle of the control are and tie rod with the bump steer correct.....




Here the car is back on it's own suspension.....





and late this afternoon I met up with a buddy at his shop to get an LS1 block for mock up, this is a fine ventilated version of an LS1.....

 

Nice job sorting out the bump steer and the arm mods...Yeah those vented LS1's are lighter than normal but...They go through alot of oil...

 

Thanks..... Ironically, he said that one was ventilated because it had no oil in it.....

 

Today I modified the bottom of my steering column for a bearing support..... Then I got the new steering shaft made and installed.....

Here is some steering column progress(I like to dimple the double-d shaft so the set screws in the joints lock in to it).....








and here is the steering shaft.....




On a side note I disassembled the mock up block I got..... It's amazing the bearings looked nearly perfect including the one in the broken rod..... here's a couple pic's of the carnage.....

 

This morning I got the block pressure washed and dried..... I made a cardboard cover for the top of the oil pan and attached it along with an oil pan gasket to the block, I masked the outside of the pan with cardboard and tape(It's a new pan and I did not want to get marked up or dirty)..... I attached my engine cradle to it and stood it up right then put cylinder head alignment dowels, head gaskets, and heads on it..... I gutted powerglide with a deep pan to it and put an engine lift bracket on the valley..... Got it up in the air, removed the engine cradle brackets and set it in the engine compartment..... I had and old Maverick V8 crossmember I started to modify for another application a while back, so I drilled it for the glide trans mount and put it in and bolted the trans to it..... Next I pot a 3/4" block between the rack and oil pan for clearance..... After that I was trying to center the motor and I just wasn't looking straight in the car, so I said the hell with it for the day and went home..... When I was loading the pic's on the computer I realized I drilled the front of that crossmember and put it in backwards..... The way these crossmembers bolt in the factory trans mount slots are slightly offset so the trans is centered in the car and when I put it in backwards it moves the trans to the driver side..... Tomorrow morning I will go down and get the car off the ground so I can get this corrected and make sure the trans is properly centered.....

Here is the cleaned up block and the progress as I put it together for mock up in the car.....







Here is the trans crossmember I drilled and on of it in the car.....





Here it is the motor/trans sitting in the car(everything looks pretty good but I may try to raise it a little to get the pan even with the k-member, I also think I am going to move it slightly forward for a bit more firewall clearance.....

 

Looking good, Frank! The engine looks plenty comfortable between those shock towers.