Mopar Muscle Association UK

If I had known you were lurking Dunc I would have modded
Looking to to fit a tubular top and bottom with coil overs and cross brace the chassis myself.
Then fit a rack in front of the spindles just looking for a cheap way of doing it.
Need to find some spindles with front steering arms to start with and go from there.

OK here are some sorry pics of the old girl.
She looks a bit different after today though stripped out the everything you see so there are a few bits up for grabs
Steering col, steering box, 440 headers rear view mirror dash torque arms, front drum brakes, front shocks.
Also some rather nice aluminum replacement inner wings.
Cas cut out the floor and the bottom of the right leg ready for repair and the 12 point gage and rear engine supports more pics to follow.

As a few of you know I have wanted to fit a tubular front frame and discs to the old girl but the whole set up was very expensive so decided to have a go myself while waiting to accumalte some funds to buy the new gearbox bits and roll cage extension.
So here are a few pics which show my set up.
Basically I have shed the old K frame and front hubs. then set about making my own A frame set up.
After a bit of searching I found that the Jag XJ6 had seperate ball joint on the top and a spindle mounted ball joint on the bottom so got a whole front clip for £60, removed the top and bottom wishbones spindles and discs and scrapped the rest.
AS I wanted to keep the same geometry I made new tubular A frames, the same length as the original top and bottom arms.
The top is a direct replacement for the old top wishbone but as you can see it has the Jag top ball joint bolted in place.
The lower A frame has the cut off end of the old JAG bottom A Frame arm also bolted in, it also has the original shock mount which will be used for the coil overs.
picture back to front as ususal

One of the advantages of using the existing tower is that the camber adjustment can still be used.
I then had some bottom brakets made to support the lower A frame which places the centers in the same position as they were in the K frame the joining angle you see is is just to keep the brackets aligned while i fit them the the chassis rails.

here you can see the brakets being measured and fitted to the chassis rails.
We measured from the rear axle to ensure the wheel distance is the same both sides and we got it to within 1 mm.
As you can see the old tourque arm holes came in handy.
OH and I loose the torque arms as well

Now you can see its all comming together and starting to take shape

Did you lift the front end to get it into the garage?

Should be ready for the nats then

by the power of suggestion al.................

Here is a shot of the lower A frame brackets finished with the jig angle removed from inside the engine bay.

If you have been following this mod you may have hear me talk about positive castor gain.
Basically your top wisbone is twisted the front being higher than the rear.
The bottom wishbone swings at right angles to the chassis rails.
Therefore as the suspention moves through its travel the top ball joint is moved backwards inducing negative castor to to compressed side of the suspention making it easier to steer out when in a turn.
To illustrate this effect I have dangled a socket from the top ball joint and marked the line "A" when the car is at rest.
I then lifted the top arm as if the suspention was under compression and then marked line "B".
As you can see top ball joint centre moves to the rear aprox 1".
The last picture is the old girl back on 4 wheels.
OH lastley the pcd of the JAg front hubs is the same ande the old wheel nuts fit as well result

Costs so far are:
Jag front end £ 60
Ball joints and half nuts £160
A frames and brackets £200
Nuts and bolts £ 10
New front dics e bay £ 20
Toyal so far £310
Which is about twice the weight I have lost in pounds.
PS thanks to Cav for his hard work and believing it would actually work.

I see that there is a lot of positive camber there with the suspension hanging loose.

Are the suspension arms unequal length to limit that and does it have any camber change as the suspension moves up and down in it's normal working range?

Hi Dave.
Your right there is about 65mm of negative camber measured at the rim of the wheel, so I need to extend the lower A Frame arms as the rose joints are at mid adjustment.
I will extend the arms by 75mm and that will allow me to dial out the upper arms beacause the adjustment is all in at the moment.
I am waiting for the new coil overs to be delivered and once they are fitted I will dial it all in.

Bump
Sorry Dave I did not answer your question fully.
The arms are uneaqual leangths.the top being shorter of course.
When you move the assembly through its travel there is about 8mm camber added which I figure is about right.
I will recheck when I have extended the lower arms.

Shocks turned up today.