I have a week off after Christmas, so I've been trying to order everything I need to get the front end suspension finished (minus the shocks). I now have ball joints, sleeves and the fixings for lower and upper a-arms. I also ordered up a tapered reamer to finish the spindle adapters that I built and modify the stock lower ball joint hole to accept a more common Mustang II ball joint.
First up were the adapters. I had already drilled a 1/2" hole to start, but with no existing taper it took a little more time to get a taper and then expand it large enough to accept the ball joints. I was a little worried about buying the cheapest taper I could find but it cut through the top plate without any issues.
The next step was expanding the lower ball joint hole in the factory spindles. I'm not proud of this setup, but it held on both spindles. These went much quicker than the adapter as they were pretty close to start with.
One tip when enlarging the tapered hole is use the drill press to get the fit close. Once it's close, use the reamer by hand. If your drill press is like mine... cheap, then it'll wobble a little which you'll be able to feel by moving the ball joint around. A few turns of the reamer by hand removed that little wobble for me.
Here's the finished product. The adapter is on the spindle, ball joints in both the upper and lower mounts, and the whole assembly inside a wheel to make sure it fits.
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