1971 Speedipus Rex by dangina

By diyauto
( 4 )

6 minute(s) of a 251 minute read

3-22-2014

So its been a crazy -CRaZY past 8 months with work averaging about 60-70 hrs/week. The financial part of it is good but its taking its toll. I have been working on the roadrunner here and there, it seems I love to do things at least twice, the longer it sits, the more I change my mind  


I got my 47-ci stroker back finally, the stock covers are on just to protect the valvetrain, they are also wrapped up underneath, I have some aluminum covers that I'll be painting to match and putting on.




I had to grind one area on the box for clearance, painted it up




got some new hood pins!




Brads70 on the forum here complained that his monotube shocks were too bouncy with the hyperco leaf springs, he switched to QA1 double adjustables and the problem went away. Even though the ones he had were bilsteins, I decided to sell the hotchkis fox racing ones for these for peace of mind:




I bought this to try on my cra, its for a barracuda, I thought the lower pans looked the same and you don't know until you try it, too bad it doesn't fit my car, its a nice big spoiler, I'll have to stick to the camaro one for now




I was reading on the forums you can get these boots for the rod heim ends, I'm just choked I didn't know about this sooner, you can buy them from seals-it. not sure if they are entirely worth it, but again peace of mind. I tore apart my entire front suspension to get these back on.



So reading more on the forums i decided to give this a try, the stock endlinks that came with the hellwig swap bar was a long 5/16" bolt that was on a huge angle to the lca hole and the holes at both ends had so much slop to them I never cared for it. This seemed like a good solution. The are actually ford endlinks for their explorer? They are Moog#K750074. With the dual pillowballs I can get the angles I want with no slop!


Using a 5/16" bronze bushing, I installed them on both the LCA and sway bar:






Cut them down shorter to what I needed:




final assembly:





Some of the guys shorten them an inch, or cut them down to make them adjustable, I'll leave them for now as they are still about 1-2" higher than the balljoint.


I was never happy with the way the wheel sits in the center, with the longer brackets and shorter spring, It seem like I was still about a 1 1/2" off center more towards the rear, seeing how I left about 2 inches towards the front of my sliders at full rebound, I figure I could get that back and still have a 1/2" to spare. So I took my brackets and re-drilled them 1 1/2" back and for fun about another 1/4" up! drop that rear baby!


before:





1 1/2" back




Finished!




Since I moved my rear axle back to where it needed to be, I had to also move the sway bar endlink mounts, I didn't like the hellwig 8" long mounts with bushings, so I thought I'd go with 1/2" adjustable heim links. 


had to file the inside of skid 40 3/8" steel tubing to get the 1/2" bolts to fit, its pretty snug!




welded, painted and body sealed and painted again! then hook up. Using steel heim links for now until I get some aluminum ones







Started on the hardlines for my brake lines:





thats all for now, I'm actually just about finished my front end except I ran into complications. The solid tie rod sleeves I bought from PST were over 1" shorter than stock tie rod ends so I couldn't finish the front end until I get some new ones. A BIG THANKS TO BRADS70!!!! for coming to my rescue and tooling up some and shipping them to me which arrived today! I'll have more updates the next set of days off...



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