Guys in shop all jumped onto a 55.2 pickup last Monday and MII'd it in one day. Johnathon cleaned the frame rails, plasma cut boxing plates and migged them in. Kory welded in cross member and hung all the suspension on it. Abel cut factory column and U-jointed it to the rack and also mounted the p/b booster. Aaron mounted the engine and transmission and strung out the harness wires. 6am to 6pm and they were TIRED but also crowing quite a bit. I told them if they were REALLY good the wires and brake lines would be hooked up. Return comments wouldn't make it past the site moderator.
-
We have upgraded our forum software! See here for details.
Proud of themselves
- Thread starter coilover
- Start date
Lakeroadster
Member
Is the Mustang II swap up to the task for a big old heavy pickem up truck?
We started doing this swap before there was a Mustang II and got them off of junkyard Pinto's---same thing only Pinto strut rod had a better angle. If you get a chance look at how a Pinto front suspension is set up; the whole engine is set in FRONT of the suspension cross member so it is a fulcrum with all the engine/front sheet metal/ cooling system/a-c, etc. Has nearly the weight of the whole car on it so the answer is yes and no. The Ford parts were pressed tin which looked like a couple layers of 16g for the cross member and maybe 11g for the upper A-frame and lower control arm plus the strut rod with rubber biscuits on the rear so the answer here is NO. The quality after market ones have a cross member of at least 3/16 (Fatman is a full 1/4) with tubular A-frames on bottom and top so the answer is YES. The stock Pinto/MII springs are too strong for a small block and right for a big block (remember they carried the weight of nearly the entire car). We used the springs from a 1600 OHV Pinto for a small block and station wagon springs for monster hemis but now Speedway offers them in any rate a person might need. To sum it up the new MII kits just partially uses the original Pinto design but none of the hardware. I guess the MII name has stuck just like we call all adjustable wrenches "Cresent wrenches" even if they are made Craftsman.