COMET CENTRAL

Rebuild my front end and somehow ended up with my front end up too high in the air. The upper control arm actually bottomed out on the car frame. After I installed the engine it lowered from the weight, but only slightly - I now have about a 1/4 gap. Coincidentally the rear end also seems high (new leaf springs back there) - the entire car appears a few inches too high which actually looks pretty cool but am lot looking for looks. But my worry is that when I hit bumps in the road I'll be banging the hell out of the control arms onto the frame which can't be good, and will make for dangerous handling. An associated problem is tie rod geometry - I can barely even connect them because the spindle connections are so low relative to the center/drag link. I can't imagine how this happened. My first thought was that since I replaced the coil springs with new ones, that was the problem because upon examination they were about 1/8 thicker diameter steel that my originals (but the free standing height was identical). So I pulled out out the new ones, and cleaned up and and installed the original skinnier old ones - this gave me a very slight drop but not a significant improvement. I had a grey beard take a look and he said I could take the coil springs out and cut out one revolution, making the entire spring shorter. This would definitely drop me a couple inches - theoretically this should work. But, I'm reluctant to do it just because I can't figure out the reason I have this problem in the first place - hate to throw out the baby with the bathwater. If anyone has any advice, I'm all ears. Another thought is that I converted from an auto trans to manual - manual weight is considerably lighter, but I wouldn't think lighter enough to cause this height problem - I can put all my bouncing body weight on the car and barley budge it a 1/2 or so. As if that issue isn't enough, I also have a problem with wheel camber - the tops of the tires are about an inch too far in and I have the adjustments at the upper control arm mounts in the engine bay backed out as far as I possibly can with about 1/2 of shims on each bolt which seems crazy (used original control arms, replaced the ball joints). I installed new lower control arms and the dimensions are identical to the old ones. I'm hoping that maybe when I address the spring height problem and get it all down a few inches, the wheel camber will spread out a little (didn't think to test this theory out earlier in the game). There is no camber adjustment option at the lower control arm mount like I believe there is in some other newer fords. Also, I installed a disk brake upgrade kit, but it uses the same spindles and doesn't impact any geometry, other than moving up from 13 to 14 inch wheels.
Any ideas?
Les

The two LCA's mount bolts should not be tightened up until you have the weight on the car. that's all I can think of. you might check all of the part numbers of anything you put on new to be sure you got the right parts.

Get a set of spring compressors from your local auto parts store(they loan them for free) and try compressing the springs a bit. If it fixes your height and camber issues, then cut a loop off the spring.

So you now have the original UCAs, springs and spindles on the front that the car came with, right? So what's NEW that could impact the geometry? The new LCAs. If they are the incorrect arms and are too long, they would cause the excess negative camber problem, as well as possibly cause binding of the ball joints, not allowing the suspension to settle. Are the ball joints correct and installed correctly? Do they have the same range of angle rotation as the originals? Did you install new strut rod bushings? If the new bushings are too thick or thin, they could put the LCAs in a bind, not allowing them to settle. I wouldn't think that the difference in weight of an auto vs. man trans would make a significant difference. Try getting 4 or 5 of your heaviest friends to pile in the car and see how much it settles. Does it sink with each additional occupant, or does it drop a little, then no more? It's not unusual for the rear to sit higher with new springs. Some guys ride around with a couple of bags of concrete in the trunk for a while to get them to settle.
Jim

It sounds like you've checked the parts you replaced against the old ones and they were the same? So either something got installed wrong or the springs and bushings just need to settle.

Thanks for the comments, gents - will look into these suggestions

YRS ago,,,,,switched to a v8 frt end on a 63 falcon,,,,tried to use 390 frt coils,,,,throwd the frt end so highI couldn't even back it out of the shop.....replaced with the correct springs and fixed it,,,,drove it for along time,,,,,that's all ...the frt springs were to tall...........but it had a great look sittin that high in thr frt......pop

Nothing wrong with the Gasser/ straight-axle look!!

Rocket989 wrote:Nothing wrong with the Gasser/ straight-axle look!!

AND that was what I was after,,,,but when I tried to back it out of the shop,,,those 390 springs were way to much,,,I had taken the v8 frt end from a 63 260 comet,,so I used those frt springs and all was back to normal....but it sure looked tough with that frt end up in the wind

I have a bad (good?) feeling mine is gonna look that way with the new motor. It was already darn near level and kicking 50+ lbs off with the aluminum heads and a few more with the headers ain’t gonna help!! And that crazy back seat for the kids will just nudge the rear lower!!