64 Wildcat front suspension rebuild

before taking it to the alignment shop make sure you drive it around a few miles (lots of turns and stopping etc.) and then re check the torque on all the suspension castle nuts. A few of mine needed to be re torqued and having it aligned before checking them is going to throw the alignment off a bit.

 

Thanks for the tip. I hope the ~20 miles or so that I dove it before the re-torque and alignment was enough.

The alignment went well. The before and after specs are attached. The tech was a younger guy who has an appreciation for classic cars. My string alignment method (at least for toe) was closer than I expected. The car drives and tracks good. Next year will be the rear suspension and drive shaft's turn.

Here's a few lessons learned from this work:

1. Change the lower ball joint grease fittings to 45 or 90 deg if they are the striaght type. I couldn't get my graese gun to seal on the straight ones because of intereference with the brake backing plate. Also my new lower ball joints had one inch and one metric threaded grease fitting???

2. Re-use the OE grease fittings for the upper control arm bushings. The ones in the PST kit were straight and there's no way to access them from the ends. I bought 90 deg fittings from TSC and they were not tall enough after installing for the graese gun to clear the upper control arm. The OE fitting are slightly taller.

3. SS brake line have to be torqued much more than plain steel lines to seal.

4. I can't recommend the Motive pressurized brake bleeding system. I could not get a good seal between the MC and the adaptor. The rubber on the adaptor is very firm and I nearly stripped the studs/wing nuts on the adaptor trying to get it to seal and hold pressure. Also, you must fill the pressure container with 2 quarts of brake fluid to use it and you cannot store the fluid in it for long periods. At $7.99 a quart for DOT3/4 I'd hate to just throw it away but what are the options? Last but not least I am sure it would make a mess when you removed the adaptor from the MC as you are pressurizing the MC to ~10 psi with fliud. I used the old Mighty Vac with no problems. The Motive system will go up for sale :bla: