Glad to see that you made it over here. As mentioned on the other site, I would go back to original. Someone should be jumping in soon to see if you can still use your Wilwood Discs with the original Spindles. I know that you can use some kits with the originals, but not sure which ones.

Welcome to the site by the way.

 

I'm leaning towards going back to stock height spindles. That solution has, in my opinion, the fewest question marks in terms of alignments and bump steer problems. I just hope I can use the old original stock spindles on the Wilwood kit. Hope someone knows for sure.

Thank you for the warm welcome

 

This is a tuff one. You're in rarified territory.
I assume the popular answer is to got to original spindles. Thats how unisteer probably designed things. Nothing wrong with that option.

I love a low stance however, so even with stock springs, I'd be using shorter springs.

IIRC, You want those tierod ends to be level to the ground to eliminate bumpsteer.

Personally I might look into these options to make that happen...

Google Search

 

Thank you for your input.
The parts about the tierod ends should be as level as possible puzzles me a bit, as I've been reading up on this subject, and I saw a video of someone explaining the whole bumpsteer phenomenon. They were adamant that the angle of the steering rod must match the angle of the control arm. I might remember that a bit wrong, but the steering rod on my car was very much at an angle compared to the control arm. I'm admittedly on thin ice here, I don't know much about this.
Could the solution be as simple as buying new tireod ends, mount them onto the drop spindles and try and adjust angles so bumpsteer disappears...?

 

I think unfortunately you've got a complicated problem that you could take in several directions to try & solve depending on how many coins you want to throw at it, but because it's also an uncommon setup it may not have been solved by anyone else here and it may require more trial & error than you want to do.

Other than reverting back to a completely stock setup - If you're happy with the current handling & setup & the real issue is only the tie rod to road distance then the easiest solution would be to go with bigger wheels/tyres to gain more clearance, bearing in mind though that each inch of change in wheel diameter will only change the clearance by about a 1/2 inch.

Another alternative would be to revert back to the standard configuration, while retaining the Drop Spindles & UniSteer which would re-introduce the bump steer that the previous owner encountered of course, but that could then be addressed by replacing the front upper & lower control Arms with some from Global West or Ridetech etc which because of their inherent design provide more adjustability than the original control arms. If you wanted to remove the Drop Spindles as well you could still adjust the ride height lower if you used the Ridetech setup including their shocks with ride height adjustment, but I'm not sure how much drop they will allow, it might be worth asking Ride Tech directly if that's the way you decided to go.

Just keep reminding yourself, like I constantly do with my own money pit, that it's only money & you sure as hell aren't taking any of it with you when you finally do go.

 

Thank you!
I had a look at what Global West offers. Looks like a viable solution, but pricey. I figure I might try and buy new tierod ends and mount them directly onto the drop spindles, and see if I can get alignments adjusted such that bumpsteer reduces/goes away while retaining a proper wheel alignment. I have doubts though - the previous owner has probably already played around with that solution. Might just have to suck it up and buy control arms... As far as money goes, I do not intend to die leaving a fat bank account behind.

 

A few questions for you to answer to yourself (no need to respond to me):

Does the car 'wander' while driving? How does it perform when 'returning to center'?

Does the aftermarket rack and pinion steering require additional + caster to drive 'properly'? More than the OEM upper control arms can deliver?

A comment, or two:

Most OEM alignment specs of the era (approximately neutral caster; + or - 1 degree) were designed accommodate the many cars bought and driven w/o power steering (adding caster increases steering effort). But, that caster was fine for the power steering cars too.

Mixing the OEM alignment specs with aftermarket rack and pinion (or some other after market systems) is not something I would do.

"Bump steer" is a term that did not exist in the 50's and 60's; nor did the cars exhibit the driving symptoms some call 'bump steer' now. It basically did not exist in practice nor terminology.

The cars did not handle like today's, but they did not 'bump steer'. They rode 'straight', turned properly for their design, and stopped quite well in normal daily driving. They performed as designed and within their design limits; there was no 'fear' or 'worry' from the drivers.

The driver was expected to know to pump the brakes if they needed to steer and stop at the same time (driver's were the ABS).

Just info and trying to be helpful

Pete

 

"Bump steer" is a term that did not exist in the 50's and 60's; nor did the cars exhibit the driving symptoms some call 'bump steer' now. It basically did not exist in practice nor terminology.

The cars did not handle like today's, but they did not 'bump steer'. They rode 'straight', turned properly for their design, and stopped quite well in normal daily driving. They performed as designed and within their design limits; there was no 'fear' or 'worry' from the drivers.

This is something that I am sure not familiar with and never experienced to boot. I had to research it to fully understand it. Evidently this is just a lowing problem. I'm from the school where we raised up our front ends and other than maybe an alignment, we had no issues. Funny though when I put 396 Front Springs in my '67 that had a Small Block I soon brought it to be re-aligned. He started to take the car off the rack and I was puzzled. He said the alignment was perfect and there is no charge, lol.

 

I'm certainly no expert on suspension, but what are the groups thoughts with going back to stock spindles and go with 2" lowering front coil springs?

 

I would’ve thought it a good idea to revert to stock length springs, but I too am no expert…