WARNING! Incorrect assembly and maintenance of this part can cause serious injury or death
When that’s in bold, italicized, and the first statement in the list of instructions, it brings it home that this is no Airfix kit and I’m actually building a racing car that I’m going to drive on the road.
Having realised that I couldn’t torque up the upper control arm ball joint with the arm installed on the car, I had to take them both off and hold them in the vice. Once torqued to spec, they went back on the car. For some reason, 110lbft of torque doesn’t seem so much the second time around. Next up, the custom tubular lower control arms, an upgrade from the standard Mustang arms. These went on pretty easy, I only needed one new tool for this, a 10″ socket extension with 1/2″ drive.
With both arms on, the next part is to install the spindles. I don’t have those yet (will be ordering this week, hopefully in time for next weekend). So instead, I jumped ahead and installed the front coil-over-shock assembly.
These are gas filled, adjustable Koni shocks, an upgrade from the standard Bilsteins that Factory Five sell. There’s been some bad news over some Bilsteins snapping so I’d opted to upgrade to the Konis. Besides they’re bright red and very cool looking. I also had to buy a special adjusting spanner to adjust them – any excuse for a new tool.
Lessons learned today:
- No matter how many times you remind yourself to remember to not hit your head on something, you do, again. And again. And again.
- Heed the instructions: ‘serious injury or death’ sounds quite serious.