anybody mini tub or frame section the rear?

[toms_elleck]

Not sure if this is helpful but here’s how Hackster put the shocks in his frame rail

Hackster's LSA / T56 2 door

infront of the axle is **** for these cars

turbobricks.com

Sean’s build is just so awesome. I’m looking through those pictures like- yup! That’s exactly what I should do too. It’s so good. I’d love to make some custom adjustable trailing arms for the coil over mounts, adjustable panhard mounts, move the lower shock mounts down….

But at the same time, I have to be honest with myself about my skill level, and the main use of the car. It’s my daily, and I use the car for long remote road trips and “rallies.”It’s generally a good idea to keep things closer to OEM, or at least keep the ability to overnight parts from Summit. You can drive to the next town with a bad shock or broken shock mount. You can even limp home sitting on bump stops. But a damaged custom trailing arm is a bigger pickle, sitting in the middle of a gravel road in upstate Idaho.

I just need to think through this some more and not let it snowball. The car works really well right now and doesn’t need so much change. It really just needs bigger brakes.

I’ll spend a little more time laying under it and come up with a few new options. Thanks all for your guidance!

 

[toms_elleck]

In case you’re curious, these are the ford brakes, and you can see the black parking brake cable brackets on the back of them. That’s what’s interfering.

I took one of the brackets apart and started planning how I could modify that bracket for more clearance.

But even trimmed down to just that one arm, it’s still too tight. I’m holding it approximately where it would sit based of my rough measurements with a digital caliper. It’s just a little too close for comfort. I need to pull the axles to do a true test fit- this is just an initial mockup to gut check.

It’s maybe possible for the caliper to live at the 12 o’clock position if I machine and redrill the caliper bracket… but it’d be really damn close to both the spring and shock.

The stock caliper bracket puts the caliper at about the 10 o’clock position, directly impacting the shock. I’d love to put it there because the bleeder position and e-brake cable locations are ideal.

That’s what led me to wanting to
Move that shock to the other side of the frame rail and trailing arm.

 

[mikep]

Sorry dude, didn’t mean to annoy. But thanks for your input!

Not annoyed, i was tired, and i think in person it is way easier to share geometry. Or if i had a tablet i could sketch on.

 

[mikep]

How about a different caliper and a hydraulic hand brake?

 

[Manimal]

Are you trying to use the exploder rotor or the mustang rotor? The mustang rotor is 23mm "shorter" in height(35mm vs 58mm), would that move the caliper out enough to clear? Are you trying to switch to the mustang caliper to fix the hydraulic bias or for pad selection?

 

[RvolvoR]

MKM trailing arms and the Gaz coilovers they match with them.

 

[cosbySweater]

couldnt make the stock explorer e brake work? coilovers will help them clear. Are you running a stock exploder axle shortened on one side?

 

[toms_elleck]

Are you trying to use the exploder rotor or the mustang rotor? The mustang rotor is 23mm "shorter" in height(35mm vs 58mm), would that move the caliper out enough to clear? Are you trying to switch to the mustang caliper to fix the hydraulic bias or for pad selection?

I'm trying to run the slightly larger diameter Mustang vented rotor without the integrated parking brake drum brake. The whole point of this is to run the mustang rear calipers for the increased volume, to match the Mustang master cylinder and the Brembo front brakes.

 

[toms_elleck]

couldnt make the stock explorer e brake work? coilovers will help them clear. Are you running a stock exploder axle shortened on one side?

yep, stock Explorer 8.8 shortened on one side.
I do have the explorer parking brake hooked up, although I could probably use new shoes in there. It's not very grippy.

MKM trailing arms and the Gaz coilovers they match with them.

Those arms look pretty cool! Relocating to rear coilovers would do it for sure, just cost a bit more. Has anyone here run those trailing arms over some time? Without seeing them in person, they might be super stout or they might be a bit flexy. I really do like the idea of keeping OEM arms on the car, just for simplicity and parts replacability away from home.


here's a clean photo of the rear suspension.

Help me out. I'm just not understanding the geometry concern about move the shock to the other side of the frame rail. I really don't see how moving the shock to the inboard, (in the exact same mounting position, just on the other side of the frame rail and the trailing arm) will impact suspension geometry that much, if at all.

On the top, I think it could just be a matter of just bolting the factory shock bolt through the inside hole, into the same threaded mount inside the frame rail. Maybe with a longer bolt. This is the factory upper bolt:


For the bottom, I'm imagining a longer grade 8 bolt flipped around so it sticks out on the sway bar side of the trailing arm. (Possibly reinforced with a shock relocation bracket welded to the arm so it's not single shear). A long bolt would go through the entire trailing arm, just like stock. The sway bar interaction is a bit weird, so another option would be to weld a shock mount to the bottom of the trailing arm and avoid interacting with the sway bar mount. Something like this:


There are a bunch of different flavors of universal shock brackets, it's just a matter of finding some that are pretty close to what fits then cutting/welding in place.



I guess it's the same amount of work as welding mounts for coilovers behind the axle. The only benefits are keeping things more stock-ish, and reusing the parts I already have to save some money.

 

[Manimal]

I'm trying to run the slightly larger diameter Mustang vented rotor without the integrated parking brake drum brake. The whole point of this is to run the mustang rear calipers for the increased volume, to match the Mustang master cylinder and the Brembo front brakes.

If you're running the 17z brakes with a 330 rotor, the explorer caliper and rotor are a better match. The explorer caliper has a 48mm piston while the mustang is 43mm. Switching from the 285mm explorer rotor to the 300mm mustang rotor + caliper will shift the bias forward, you'd need to run about a 345mm rotor in the rear with the mustang caliper to get the bias back near stock. The 17z and explorer setup is almost identical bias to the stock system.

 

[toms_elleck]

If you're running the 17z brakes with a 330 rotor, the explorer caliper and rotor are a better match. The explorer caliper has a 48mm piston while the mustang is 43mm. Switching from the 285mm explorer rotor to the 300mm mustang rotor + caliper will shift the bias forward, you'd need to run about a 345mm rotor in the rear with the mustang caliper to get the bias back near stock. The 17z and explorer setup is almost identical bias to the stock system.

Interesting information, thanks! I didn't think that my Explorer calipers would work with the 17Z. They work fine right now paired with vented 240 ABS front calipers and the stock 240 master. so I just assumed they'd need to be bigger. Since I'm adding the Mustang master, I just sort of assumed that Mustang rear calipers would be sized right for the master.

yeah, I have 330mm R rotors for the front.
I just measured these Mustang calipers, and I'm actually only getting 41mm piston diameter.
I haven't measured my rears, but some quick searches show you're right! 48mm

Well dang. No need to upgrade these rear brakes? That's awesome.
Only bummer is that I was looking forward to the vented rotor.

I really appreciate the information you provided. I'll put the front brakes and master on the car and try it out with the current explorer brakes. I do have a rear brake bias knob, so I can make some fine adjustments. Hopefully that's that!