Strut Rod FIX

WesternRed wrote: My kit from Opentracker arrived yesterday, I bought the one for the later Mustang and my machinist buddy at work has turned it down to fit the smaller diameter of the AMC bracket hole and made a couple of spacers to make up the extra thickness. Word of warning here, my initial thought was just to machine it down on both faces to fit the bracket, which is obviously a bit thinner than the Ford one, however on second thoughts it is actually a ball and if you machine the two halves down for fit the thinner bracket, it won't be a perfect ball anymore and probably will not articulate as intended. Next problem, on trial fit is that it lacks a bit of articulation and will not allow full suspension travel (drop). With the suspension at full drop, it is still about 3/4" short of contact the lower control arm and hence would become the limiting factor in suspension extension. I'm drag racing, so looking to maximize this area, maybe not such an issue on a street/track car, but I don't particularly want the strut rod to be the hard limit as it is probably not meant to be stressed this way. We are going to try to modify the Delrin ball halves to give a little more articulation. Hopefully this will be enough, otherwise the metal cups will need chamfering as well. I actually have poly strut rod bushes at the moment and giving them a bit of a flex, I'm surprised how stiff they are, doesn't surprise me at all that people break strut rods. Also a bit of an observation that the shock is currently the thing that limits extension, which is not really ideal either. Beyond that, if the shock is not connected, the upper arm will eventually hit the lower control arm bump stop bracket. Seems odd that there is no factory bump stop to limit extension, but then gars don't generally get airborne in general use.  Hopefully it will be all fixed tomorrow.

Going back to page 3 on this thread, it seems that Maier Racing uses more of a spherical ball shape in using the halves to rotate with. Though it's expensive, it may produce more drop when suspension is relaxed.

That is one reason why I chose to slot the cups that hold the ball in place. The problem with slotting, is alignment. You just can't slap the cups in place and sighten down. In some ways, by making components simple for fitment sake, may have unexpected limits in operation.

I think with open tracker, you may machine more radius or use a ball in the center. Greyhounds, may have that option to play around with, in his quest to use poly replacement parts.

Not to blow my own horn, just turns out my design would probably fit more street / strip needs, than track. But can be used for street / track as well. If one is willimg to invest extra money, they could try my mod out, using their own machine work and resources, for tighter clearances. After all I did my mod by hand.

I think one could do what I did within $75.00 range, if poly bushings are already laying around in the shop, it may just be time and some extra coin for misc. materials.

I think it would be good if one of you guys gave feedback to Opentracker on what you did to fit them on your AMC. They may be more willing to offer a kit if AMC enthusiasts already tell them what to change (or give them that starting point).

I hadn't checked the position of the strut rod versus the bushing to see how much travel is left - that's pretty critical. And I expect that on lower sitting cars like mine it's going to be reduced, maybe too much reduced. Really, I'd expect that most people who'd be willing to move to the Opentracker setup are probably lower than stock.

What I was thinking, would it be doable to machine the outer cups a smaller diameter. As i thought all the pivot is being blocked by outer edges hitting the bracket. The difference between stock and the open tracker seems to be the outer metal parts being at different distances. I would assume 1/8" trim around the edge would not hurt. Since the cups are deep enough. Any opinions on that?

Mine still don't go close to hitting the bracket, but you could just chamfer the edge of the washer if you needed a little more clearance. One thing you probably don't want is so much travel that you uncover the cone in the ball or you could end up with dirt getting in there.