Preparing the front suspension
After pulling the body and setting the buck, it’s time to wrench. First up: the lower control arms on the front suspension.
Related notes live on the Factory Five Cobra build hub.
Installing the lower control arms
After last week we pulled the body, set up the body buck, and attached the F-panels. Therefore it’s time to start wrenching!
First up is the lower control arms. Simple enough, right? Four bolts, four locknuts, and a few washers… Well, it all went great until the last bolt!
I inadvertently put the closed end of my wrench on the locknut. As a result, it was captured against the frame…
Thankfully the forums gave me a few ideas. Then I used a thin second 15/16 wrench to loosen the nut. After that I re-did it properly and torqued them down. Whew!
Upper control arms and ball joints
Next up was the upper control arms and the ball joints. They’re notoriously tight. So I used a wire wheel to scuff off the powder coating. Therefore they were easier to install with Blue Loctite.
Rough alignment while waiting on KONIs
I had to align the arms a bit. Because they’re adjustable. FFR gives you some simple measurements to get alignment close. Sadly, my KONI shocks are on backorder till end of March. Meanwhile I’ll be doing other items until they show up.
