Background: I discovered the front wheel on the Mustang is scraping the control arm.
The lower control arm on my car has a stiffening plate welded to it. This plate is what was fouling the wheel, I simply filed down the plate till the wheel cleared.
In looking at other control arms it appears that none of them have this plate. The plate on the control arm is definitely factory but I am trying to figure out why it's there.
So anyone know why Ford saw fit to weld this plate onto the control arm?
It's probably because the spring loads the control arm in bending.
Casual searching for "1990 mustang control arm" and "SN95 control arm" shows a stiffening plate where the rim might rub it at full lock. I assume that is where it's hitting.
I searched for SN95 because 5 lug swap makes me think it has an SN95 front suspension swapped in. You could get 5 lug brake rotors for a Lincoln Mark VII, but the difference will be the Lincoln rotors will still have old school tapered bearings and integrated hubs, while SN95 is separate hubs and rotors.
The SN95 control arms are different, and IIRC the ball joints are taller too. Not 100% on that, it's been a minute.
Interesting, I swapped mine to five lug. Did not change the A arms, I went with 1996 spindles and longer ball joints, this corrects the roll center and helps with Ackerman. And yes changes the bearing type. The easy button is to just use ranger rotors.
The suspension on these need all the help they can get. I also have a jig for moving the steering rack back a bit.
In reply to akylekoz :
The car has the latter SN95 spindles.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
What year SN95? I looked too but didn't see that. I used Rockauto for pics.
I don't know, I did a Google Image search and got a lot of eBay Motors hits.
Definitely missing on the aftermarket arms you see on Rock Auto. Most aftermarket control arms are pretty crappy, for any vehicle.
Ok, SN95 spindles is the easy button because they are a direct fit. The 96 up method widens the track a little maybe 3/8 per side, widens the rear 3/4 per side. You will have better wheel fitment options with keeping the track width stock.
In reply to akylekoz :
It does have the latter SN95 spindles.
I believe the SVO Mustangs' front lower control arms were slightly different - wider track, I think. It's been so long it's hard to remember. Not sure if they had stiffening plates, but it's possible. Thunderbirds of that era used some of the same suspension and brake parts, my '88 Mustang 5.0 LX hatch had the 4 lug Ford "SVO" rear disk brake kit (which were actually T-bird turbo coupe factory parts, I believe).
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