Adjustable Strut Rods, More Cut Springs & New Adjustable Relay

Today was a busy day for working on the Mustang. I haven't really done a project on it on a couple of months and knew that there were some things to be done so today was the day to do them. I picked up the car from my mother-in-laws garage last night and parked it in our garage until this morning. I left the house around 9am and took Petey along with me to my parents house where I would be completing the work. The first thing I did was raise up the front of the car, place jack stands under the frame and remove the front tires. The first project I was going to tackle were the adjustable strut rods. The directions had me remove the main nut that bolts the strut rods to the frame.

Stock '66 Mustang Strut Rod

The next step was to remove the steering stops from the lower control arms. I hadn't pulled these the first time I had the car apart so they were covered in grease and general nastiness so I used the wire wheel to clean them up. I then primed and painted them so they better matched the new adjustable strut rods they would be mounting on top of.

'66 Mustang Steering Stop Re-painted

I had to install the strut rods in pieces which meant that I had to take it apart since I put the tubing together before I brought it over. The directions required that I put some anti-seize grease on the threads before I put it all together.

Once I had the threads greased and the tube threaded on, it was pretty simple to bolt on the rod to the lower control arm. Before removing the old one I measured the distance from the frame to the grease zerk fitting on the lower control arm in order to maintain the same distance once I had the new strut rod installed.

Rosehill Performance Adjustable Strut Rod '66 Mustang

I was able to take the springs out by simply twisting them since I had cut off 10.5" of  a coil last time effectively dropping the ride height about 1.5". This time I just cut about 5.25" of a coil from each side. I need to have it aligned properly now that it has the adjustable strut rods which allow an adjustment of caster. Once it's aligned I'll see how much he front end dropped.; I only needed 1/2" - 1".

In an attempt to get the belt squeal to stop I shimmed out the power steering pump a tiny bit, but that didn't help; it still squeals. I tightened the exhaust at the collector since the car was in the air and I wasn't able to get to it before. My dad did almost all of the work rewiring the new relay in for the electric fans. the one we had on the car only worked when I manually flipped the switch to turn on the fans. I noticed that it works now because the fans came on not too long after the car was started. I need to adjust the relay so that it doesn't come on for a little bit longer. It stays on until the temperature has dropped ten degrees and then it comes back on again.

Adjustable Strut Rods- Ordered

I finally ordered a pair of adjustable strut rods to replace the stock strut rods on the '66. I've read that since the stock ones mount onto a piece of rubber or polyurethane, it prevents consistent handling due to the strut rods ability to flex under stress. There is also very little ability to adjust the caster which leads to improper alignment in the front end.

I decided to go with the adjustable strut rods from Rosehill Performance Parts since people that have used them have had good things to say about them and I spent about $150 less than the ones offered from Street and Track. I'm assuming that I'll receive them sometime next week which will allow me to get them installed sometime this month if all goes well. Once i have them installed I'll have my buddy Jeff B. from American Muscle Cars, Inc. re-align the car. 

Adjustable Strut Rods 65-66 Mustang

One problem that I have been experiencing with my steering is that when I brake the car pulls to the right. Another problem I've been having is that when I'm driving on the freeway and I run across uneven pavement, the front end starts walking all over the road (not a good feeling). I'm hoping that these new strut rods and fresh alignment will correct the issue. While I have the front end apart, I'm going to cut just a tad more off of the coil springs to drop the front end another 1/2"- 1". This should be one of the last major modifications I make on the car for quite some time. I'll drop a radio in it once I find an original one that I can clean up.