Front end similarities hornet/concorde/eagle?

Don't forget the original post was NOT about Spirit, which is decidedly different than Hornet and Gremlin of the early years for each.

I will be checking out MacGyver's post about his seat experience - I just got a fast glance last night late but think it may bear merging into the seat discussion I started - and specify that the post I made may apply mostly to SX4 - which was the intent because it is the closest relative to the Spirit. 

dude - the wheel base width is interesting on Eagle - when lining up my ramps I have to account for the WIDER front wheel span compared to the rear so am working on the outside half of the ramps for the front wheels while the rears track more to the center or inner parts of the ramps. Because of the CSV joints JUST inside the SAI line (the line through the center of the upper joint straight down to the center of the lower joint)  When I say JUST inside, it's almost not - it's about in the SAI line as well. That way when you turn the joint is flexing close to center. Anyway, to do this, the hubs have to protrude quite a bit outward - to allow that joint to about intersect the SAI line through the ball joiints. This means the front wheels are moved OUTWARD from the ball joints. That means when you turn, the front wheels actually make a pretty fair OUTWARD arc. They don't pivot on the tire, the tires swing out. There's a lot they had to stuff in there. It worked GREAT - but AMC soon found that the wider swing the Eagle front tires made rubbed on the fender. Now more folks say - you're full of it - they all LOOK FINE. Well, they DO unless you stick your head into the wheel well and look BEHIND the wheel well filler trim piece - that wide piece they designed to fill the gap when they raised the car. The tires pulled the edge or lip of the fender back to the middle of the car and rolled it around, not touching the outer trim or filler. So you'll never know unless you work on these cars like I have. The 80 I sold - ask Dave about the fender lips ahead of the front wheels. This is why AMC only used the concord fender one year - 1981 they switched fenders and opened that opening up a fair amount. (I have a post about the fenders)
In fact, they added 1.5" to the front of the opening meaning the fender from front edge to wheel well opening is 1.5" LESS. So trim and other stuff won't work, either. 
1.5" is a lot - AMC must have had some troubles to make that change - especially a 1.5" change. 

As far as insult - no, you are correct - and MAYBE, just MAYBE, getting to know me a bit more. I was curious, wondering, and didn't see how it was FINALLY resolved.




........ and try to type that fast and keep up and make any sense......

When turning the wheels swing out wide forward. The rub was the front part of the wheel opening. It literally rolled the lip back at the FRONT of the wheel opening. With larger tires I bet it really caught badly, stock tires likely just enough to bend that fender flange in and forward as the wheel swung INWARD.

In this picture my yellow line and hand-drawn line represent the CONCORD and SPIRIT fender and the 1980 Eagle (ONE YEAR ONLY) fender. 
This picture shows the back side of an EAGLE fender - the part IN FRONT of or ahead of the wheel. 
Again, the yellow is where Concord and Spirit would be. The right part of the fender in the photo is the front of the car. 
This is a RIGHT fender for an SX4 that I patched by attaching an unrusted small section onto an unrusted fender that had rust and damage ahead of the wheel. (so I made a rust-free fender)

Again, the yellow represents the Concord and Spirit wheel opening ahead of the wheel, right is front of car, left is rear of car so you are looking at the BACK of the fender and the right front wheel opening is on the left of the photo.  This area shown is 1.5" more narrow than the Concord or Spirit fender. 

The yellow arrow points to the lip that gets literally folded back inward and ahead as the tire pushes  in and forward as you turn. This lip if shown on a 1980 Eagle fender would be folded or rolled back and pushed ahead. You don't see it though because that large wheel well trim covers this lip.




Edited by billd - Jun/14/2019 at 1:28pm

My red baby is 82......  I currently have an 83 in my shop to rebuild the brakes and front end, and get that stupid 1980 engine someone put in it connected CORRECTLY, installing a NOS engine bay wiring harness and rebuilding the interior. 

Now the fun part - next month I am likely getting ANOTHER SX4 for MY stable of AMCs. 
I know it needs front brake line work - unsure if it's hoses or lines or both - but the brakes are gone, the guy said the front brakes need lines, so take that for what it's worth. 
When I dig into it all bets are off other than I MUST maintain it as an automatic due to my wife's handicap and license restriction requiring an automatic, power steering and power windows (don't even tell her that she can't drive a stick, though, she drove my 1936 F20 and my Jeep Comanche which was a T5 - but the law would nail her little butt if she was caught)

So I don't know what work the other SX4 needs other than brake work - lines and/or hoses, don't know condition of steering or suspension. It HAD BEEN a daily driver up until a few years ago. It's been parked a couple of years.  It's 258 automatic, I may change that to a 4.0 so my wife can drive it more easily - fuel injection, etc.