Lowering Front Suspension on AMT 60 Ford

[Len Woodruff]

Anybody have some suggestion on lowering the front wheels on the AMT 60 Ford? They seem a little high in the stock location.

[Mr. Muppet]

Flip the spindles upside down, maybe?

[Len Woodruff]

8 minutes ago, Mr. Muppet said:

Flip the spindles upside down, maybe?

Maybe. But they would look a little odd I think with the heaver part being at the top.

[Mr. Muppet]

You could also try cutting off the spindle itself (the plastic peg that goes into the wheel back.  This might have a different name but I'm super tired right now) and attaching a piece of plastic or metal rod or  tubing of equal diameter slightly higher and/or elongating the holes in the wheel backs a little bit.  It's more of a long shot, but maybe custom lowered spindles from other AMT kits from the same era might fit in place of the Starliner spindles.  Not sure if there are any other options besides cutting up the stock spindles or scratch building brand new ones.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Mr. Muppet

[Ace-Garageguy]

This basic question gets asked repeatedly, and the answer is that you do it just like it's a real car.

Maybe I need to post a tutorial that addresses all the variations, once and for all.

I have the retooled version of the kit in question, and checked the parts.

As Mr. Muppet alludes, all you have to do is cut the STUB AXLE off the SPINDLE, and move it UP on the spindle the exact amount you want the car to come DOWN.

This is identical in effect to replacing stock spindles with "dropped" spindles on a real car.

To hit it right the first time, you really should mock the car up sitting on the stock suspension and measure the ride height.

Then remove the suspension and mock the car up where you WANT IT TO BE, and measure that ride height.

The DIFFERENCE in these two numbers is the exact amount you will need to raise the stub-axle relative to the spindle.

NOTE: Cut carefully, measure carefully, and use plenty of liquid cement to reattach the stub axles. ALLOW TO DRY THOROUGHLY, and the joints will be plenty strong to support the car.

I do this all the time. 

[Len Woodruff]

Thanks everyone for their replies. I have been looking at the spindle and I need to lower (move up) the mounting tab about 3 MM which is basically turning the spindle upside down.

I going to try some of these ideas and see which works best.

[Ace-Garageguy]

14 minutes ago, Len Woodruff said:

Thanks everyone for their replies. I have been looking at the spindle and I need to lower (move up) the mounting tab about 3 MM which is basically turning the spindle upside down.

I going to try some of these ideas and see which works best.

If you need to go 3mm (3 scale inches), turning the spindles upside down is definitely your best option.

The spindles in this kit do NOT have steering arms, so the typically-necessary swapping side-to-side when you invert spindles is NOT required here.

HOWEVER...the spindles do appear to have a very slight amount of camber designed in, and the mounting pin (where the balljoint would be) on the lower end is slightly larger than the upper...so a slight amount of massaging the holes in the control arms will be in order.

[Len Woodruff]

Thanks Bill. I will check for that. I do see that the pins are larger on the bottom of the spidle than the top. So I will need to reverse them.

[Dave Darby]

Here's what I did with an AMT 56 T bird. I cut the plastic axle off the spindle, then drilled a hole higher up and inserted a small nail the same diameter as the plastic axle. Strong and it rolls.

[Len Woodruff]

1 hour ago, Dave Darby said:

Here's what I did with an AMT 56 T bird. I cut the plastic axle off the spindle, then drilled a hole higher up and inserted a small nail the same diameter as the plastic axle. Strong and it rolls.

 

Thanks Dave.