On April 24th, I found some "Mustang II" Independent Front Suspension (IFS) components at the big swap meet out at the UMB Bank Pavillion here in St. Louis. This was my first swap meet ever and what an eye opener. I have the impression that swap meets are over glorified Junkyards as there was a lot of non-car related stuff being peddled out there. It took me about 2 hours to walk the whole thing, but I walked the entire site twice. Scotty was there and he helped me score the IFS parts. Having looked at websites where complete front ends are running $2500, I am feeling pretty good about finding the rest of the parts I need for this IFS and getting it mocked up with a stock Mustang II cross-member. Another guy at work (Eddie Jones) has a Mustang II cross-member he is going to give me. Scotty came through with another book on setting up one of these cross-members and I think I have the skills necessary to do this. It looks pretty tricky with the hacking into the frame and such, but I think this will work.

I started taking apart the front Mustang II IFS cross member I got from Eddie Jones on Friday. I got this all cleaned up with the pressure washer and then a wire brush. Cutting away the parts of the frame within the cross member turned out really nice by using a grinder. I felt I had good control over what material I wanted removed and what I wanted to stay by using my side-winder with a cutting blade.

I need to get some 3/8" or 1/2" plate to reinforce the frame close to where the front IFS cross member will go. The last picture shows the template I made out of cardboard to go to the steel market to buy some material. The lack of contrast between the color of the cardboard and the rust color in the frame required that I graphically add some red around the cardboard to illustrate where this thing is located within the web of the frame channel.

Here are some shots taken:

I did some preliminary measurements on the front suspension. With the frame at "ride height," it appears that the front cross member will be only about 7" off the ground. This is ok as the differential only has 7" of ground clearance. The shock towers of the front IFS cross member appear to make it up about half way into the frame. This was based on the ride height with the swing arms at level. I am going to take the extra time involved to cut out half the height out of the old frame to mock this up in this manner. If the cross member works out (with weight applied) to where it has to go higher up the frame (to lower the front end), I will be able to do that without over cutting original frame material. I had some 1/2" plate from some snow plow blades from work to use for lateral reinforcement in the front part of the frame for the cross member. I have things worked out to meet with Feiss at 9am Saturday morning to finish cutting these out from the pattern I made the other day out of cardboard.

I got my 1/2" plate cut at Feiss' with his plasma cutter. He knew his machine was rated to cut 1/2", but he hadn't yet tried it on that thick of material. It worked fine and I got the pieces cut accordingly. Danny came along and played in Feiss' backyard patio while we created tons-o-sparks by Feiss' garage.

From the preliminary measurements I took on the front suspension, I cut half the way up into the frame channels after fitting and tack welding in the 1/2" plate. I had to bend the plate in order to keep it in the web of the channels of the old frame.

I notched out the bottom of the old frame with a cutting wheel on a grinder and fit the cross member up into them. I am now committed to using this stock cross member due to the cuts in the old frame channel. At this stock ride height, the top A arm will not have room to bolt on properly, nor swing freely with respect to the frame rail. I will cut the rest of the frame channel to raise the height of the cross member to get this necessary clearance. That should develope about 3" of rake in the chassis, assuming the stock springs work out with a level swing arm after motor weight is applied. From this point, I'll mock things up to see how the wheels will work inside the fender wells for turning and vertical clearance concerns.

Oh, the Cardinals you ask, ...they completed a sweep of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and are now 20 games over 500 on a victory by Jeff Suppan and 4 RBI's by John Mabry.

Here are some shots taken:

I cut the rest of the side notches through the frame and reset the height of the front cross member. I am now at about a 2" rake in my rough calculations on ride height. On the last picture, you can see the notching I need to accomplish in the old frame for the upper A-arms to clear the frame. This will need to be done before I can mock up the front end.

I re-checked the input pinion angle on the rear end. It is now at about 4 degrees at calculated ride height. Schmitty has access to a set of scales. I would like to weigh the old 36 to calculate and order my rear springs. Top height is 13" and ride height is 10." With the weight from the old truck, I would have enough information to order the correct springs I need. I plan to take out of this, the parasitic weight of the rear end to further nail the proper weight of the rear of the new truck onto the springs.

I think it is time to order the front axle brake kit to set everything up with GM rotors, etc. Then it will be on to starting on the drive-train by resetting the cab, bolting the motor and tranny together and hanging them around the chassis to start designing or ordering the engine mounts to mock up the motor assembly. It is hard to believe that I need to do all of this before I can start solid welding all the components I've mocked up on the frame so far. I am getting antsy to get this done so I can paint the frame and relax before getting into the sheet metal work. I am even thinking of mocking up all the sheet metal before frame weld day, to make sure all the body components are lining up properly. Phew, this is starting to get labor intensive. Cards win again on a 6 to 1 victory by Chris Carpenter over the Cincinatti Reds. Reggie Sanders got 3 RBI's with a 2 run homer in the mix.

Here are some shots taken:

I notched out the frame and reset the cross member. I am not happy with the fit and it looks like the cross member will have to go higher to get the clearances I need. Most everything is fine, but I am forced to take the outer most portion of the upper A-arm adjustment in the current configuration. That just won't do. I will cut into the cross member and try bringing the height up over the frame another inch. This will give me 3" of rake in the frame ride height. I might be able to live with this, assuming the stock springs I have are for the V-8 Mustang. They look pretty stout, so I may have some of the rake taken out of the frame if these springs press the lower swing arms down below their level point after the motor and body weight is applied. This is getting tricky.

The Cards got schnockered by the Reds 11-4. Jason Marquis had a very bad outing. Oh well, back to 20 games over 500. I guess these guys are human after all.

Here are some shots taken:

At 3" rake on ride height, the rear end was exactly at 3 degrees pinion angle. Since the front end had to be at this height for the A-arms to pivot clearly over the frame rails, I triple-checked all of my measurements and set to welding the front cross member up. I got the driver's side done. The passenger's side has some metal pieces fabbed for the top and it is solid on the top of the frame rail, but I have to get all the lower welds done. I am getting close to getting on to the engine and transmission mock-up work.

Here are some shots taken:

Back in about mid November, I painted the frame and I have been battling cold weather to paint some of the suspension parts. The weather was warm enough yesterday to finish this painting. Today, Danny and I had some time to burn while mommy did some shopping, so we bolted the front suspension up to the frame.

Here are a couple of shots taken today:

Well it's March and the weather is starting to break a little bit. Even with an Elvis show with Shawn Barker this weekend, I eeked out enough time to go down to the shop and get the front suspension on. I am now ready to get onto the motor work for the truck. I am not going to worry about alignment issues until I get a lot of the body and mechanical components installed. At least now I have a rolling chassis to start mocking mechanical and body components up to.

Here are a couple of shots taken today: