I have a question maybe somebody can tell me if my thinking is right. I have a suspension sorta like a Maverick or Mustang II, upper and lower control arms, with strut rods off the front of the lower control arms to brackets bolted to the frame. It is a torsion bar setup now, I will be doing away with the bars and using coil overs from the bottom control arm to the top shock bracket, reinforcing the bracket as necessary. I believe the strut rods will be required to keep the LCA from moving on braking . Question is, can I reverse the strut rods, mounting them behind the front end like a Mustang II, instead of in front like a Maverick? I think that they would work the same way, just the force excerpted on them would be the opposite to the way they are now, push when they pull now, pull when they push now. They have rubber bushings on both sides of the bracket. This would be done to clean up the lines of the front end when looking from the front. It is an exposed suspension [no fenders], and I don't think the brackets sticking down under the frame beside the grill shell would look so good. The strut rods bolt onto the LCA with two bolts, and look to be reversible. I will mod the front brackets as needed to bolt to the back side of the frame, behind the tire. Does this sound feasible? Or am I stuck having to put the ugly things up front?
Here's a suspension answer...but not from an expert. Jimmy’s racecar front suspension was replaced with a Torsion Bar Suspension from a '71 Plymouth Duster with a Pinto rack & pinion steering. Mopar's have rear mounted strut rod looking things mounted around where the transmission mount is located
That's what I wanted to hear! Since the frame is the same width, location should be easy. Forgot to say what this is on, the Toyota PU frame on my street rod.
Anybody that knows more than I do can be an expert, Jeff! Just trying to get some good info from someone who knows suspensions better than I do.
When I saw your question I scratched this out for you as an Idea you might like, or maybe not. After you reverse the strut rods you can dress them up a little to help blend them in.
Yeah, I was thinking about that idea, too. Not sure how I'd connect them in the front and still make them look right. A single strut rod with heim ends, attached to the outside of the frame might work, too. Would look like a split wishbone. Trying to get as traditional a look on the front end as possible without going to a straight axle. Now that I know that I can reverse them, I have a lot of ideas. As the weather cools down, maybe I can get the front end together before it gets too cold to work outside....
With this idea you use the original strut rods and weld the upper and lower tubes on and put some plates inbetween if you should desire them. I added another pic since the pdf file wasn't very clear. Good luck.
Mr. Hatcher, I have heard that you are one of them purist type guys and that is why you spend so much time in the garage making all those "ORIGINAL" parts fit so well.
I have the same yota frame on the 31. I cut off the first 6" or so oth the frame & have heim joints & tube connecting to the back hole of the LCA, and a plate welded under the frame 6" behind the round, bolt-in crossmember. I'm trying to post pics, but my phone won't let me. When I first looked at flipping my strut rods, there seemed to be a problem with frame interferance, and it looked like it would bind.
That's good to know. I'll get around to mocking it up in the next few weeks and then I'll see if I need to go with a custom heim jointed rod or not.
They reversed just fine. I took the brackets off of the spare frame clip I have. Just need to cut them down to frame width and add a gusset or two.
