what upgrades can I do that are mostly bolt on? My front end is beat and coming apart for a major overhaul and was wondering would I could do besides a basic rebuild?

I know I can't do a shelby mod on the front. will mustang tube arms fit?

what about strut rod options?

Howdy. Take a look and see if QA1 makes shocks for you. Their single adjustables and nice, about $130 each. Also see if you can cross to a Bilstein (preferably HD) or Koni.

Sway Bars! Check www.addco.net. They are a great place. Get the biggest front bar and smallest rear.

Shock tower brace across the top of the engine. Find one or modify a Mustang one to make it fit.

Diagonal brace from firewall to shock towers, VERY important. Make sure you have the stock ones if they had 'em or get a Mustang brace and cut it up as needed.

Springs, moderately firm, not 600 lbs killers. www.espo.net or if you're lucky they will cross. Check out www.rockauto.com for listings, they may have a nice Moog spring for you. RockAuto is also a great way to find cross matches on all sorts of stuff, springs and shocks.

Good luck! - Scott
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66 Fairlane GT
Daily Driver / Survivor

well I consider that all just basic rebuild parts (poly bush the lower arms but not the strut rods)

You could beef up the stock parts but you will still end up with crappy geometry. Go with a coil over strut front end that will be completey bolt on. Fatman Fabrications has a kit now. I made my own. I still need to get back to you on my steering box mod. I am thinking of going with rack and pinion soon.
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Steve 64 S/C big brakes 8.8 rear 289 lentech AOD, strut front suspension

I was just hoping there was a simple bolt on solution that could be a big upgrade (like some tube arms or taller spindles)

i would love to convert the front end but it will just be alot of work and right now I am thinking of just welding in some patch panels (from crites) on the front frame sections and just refreshing it with new hardware. I had been thinking of new 2x3 front rails that were raised so I could stuff a FOX K-member under the car and run either stock arms or coilover struts with it (I have the rack, brakes, etc for it already)

outback I am still thining of a FOX axle with a torque arm setup. just replace the stock spring hangers with a crossmember for the lower arms (hopefully stock dimension fox ones) and a forward crossmember for the TA mount. would just run some basic coil overs or maybe another airbag setup.

pretyt sure the strut front will not fit a 62. I don't have straight lower control arms and I have a 2 bolt upper shock bracket thingy.....not like a falcon or mustang. but it does have me thinking....

I have thought of somethign similar in the past....

the lower arm mounts do bolt to the frame of a 62......


could a fox K be cut down (until it is about 6" tall) and shoved under the car? simpley torch the top off it and weld a plate on either side where the old arm mounts were. might need a craddle to support the rear to the transmission mount holes.

only killer would be having to notch the motor mount boss area of the frame for the column to pass through.

Fatman has a kit for the 62-65 Fairlanes that replaces the lower control arms. On my self made strut setup, I am using the stock lower control arms and made my own caster camber plates to locate the top of the strut.
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Steve 64 S/C big brakes 8.8 rear 289 lentech AOD, strut front suspension

yeah I think $2,000 for a kit that you still have to supply the large parts for is nuts...

does anyone know if a mustang/falcon control arm could be put on a fairlane?

Since I had some struts to use already and I built alot of the parts myself and got some used springs off of ebay and spindles cheap from the wreckers I was able to do my front end for under $500 and that is with big 12.5" brakes! I still have stock style steering as of yet. Will be planning rack and pinion soon. Will be similar to the RRS unit.
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Steve 64 S/C big brakes 8.8 rear 289 lentech AOD, strut front suspension

well I was able to get a used mustang upper control arm shipped to my door off ebay for $20 so i gave it a shot. it is an inch shorter (crap) but I have gotten to looking at other options.

Global west upper arms have no bends in them. since upper balljoints bolt to a plate and I found a connection to a waterjet guy I am thinking of having plates cut up that can be used to make some tube arms. I have a stick of 1.375"x.120" tubing laying around for the framework. a hunk of plate steel can provide a jig base. my only problem is that the mustang mounting pattern is narrower on the shafts. I am trying to come up with a viable means for attaching the arms to a crosshaft with decent control (would love to get a box of delum bushings from globalwest with undrilled shafts) it might be possible to just use a billet mustang shaft and have the holes milled into a slot to allow them to bolt to the fairlane frame (or widen the fairlane frame slots a little)

so I think I can get a simple stock geometery tube upper figured out. once I get into doing my tower notching and front frame repairs I will be lookign into doing a shelby type drop by removing the stock upper arm mount pads and lowering them on the frame 1"

after looking at options (work involved) I came up with this.....pics soon to follow...

I took my $20 mustang arm and started looking at it.....then was looking at my stock fairlane arm....so here is the game plan right now....

cut the mustang arm between the spring perch and the cross shaft....weld some metallic stuff in there, box the arm and then swap a fairlane cross shaft into it (they have different bolts sizes and spacing)

I started building a simple jig to hold everything while i do this. basicly a beam with a plate to bolt in place of the balljoint and the other end will be for in place of the cross shaft. this is all being mocked off the fairlane arm I took off the car and should get the job done wit a little eyeballing (the length will be right just have to make sure everything is aligned and not bent looking)

so maybe by next week I should have a prototype arm made up.

Well had some welder issues (I either need some thinner rod or to get my argon filled for the tig no no welding yet......plus those cross shaft nuts are a pain to get off)

did some more searching and thinking.

I am going to replace the bolt on strut rod mounts with a simple plate and tab for running a rod end on my strut rods. goign to split them in have and tap the control arm end and get a couple turnbuckle rods from speedway motors and a rod end for the frame end. should be a cheap mod.....write up will come for it too.

all right time for an update...

mustang uppers are WAY shorter and use a different cross shaft length.

I am now looking at doing some circle track arms for uppers on a bracket that will mount them outside the frame rail and lower. stock uppes are stupid long so going to a shorter upper will not hurt anything. bracket will bolt in place of stock upper and two new holes in frame below it. will have bracking running to top of shock tower for coilover mounts.


lower arms are being built from more circle track and mini truck parts...

picked up sleeves and bushings from suicidedoors.com and balljoint sleeves for screw in mopar BJ's from speedwaymotors.com tossed in some 1.375" x .120" tubing and some little bits and my new stock replacement tube arms are comming together. oh yeah also grabbed a couple frame tabs to do lower heim swaybar links on them. I think I will have around $40 in each lower arm.

strut rod mounts are being replaced with a fabbed steel mount for a heim joint and a sweged sleeve for adjustment.

current plan is maybe a tri-5 chevy steering box with integral power steering (CPP steering box) very similar to a fairlane box but with a different mount pattern. I will just drill my frame and weld in new sleeves and patch over the old ones. have been looking into fabbed drag links for the steering but not sure if I trust them.

Try borgeson for the 1965-70 Mustang integral PS gear: the OEM 1962-65 Fairlane and 1965-66 Mustang V8 all use the same sector shaft so no Pitman arm issues there. And I believe the basic gear housing dimensions are the same between Mustang and Fairlane; just different mtg bolt locations which could be solved via drilling/sleeving the LH frame rail to suit.

Side note here: when Ford offered 'factory' equipped Mustangs in Australia back in the 1960's; they used RHD 1962-64 Fairlane steering gears to facilitate the conversions.

Wont shortning your uppers give you a lot of bumpsteer?