Some of you may recall my thread about the Mevotech shenanigans over on the other site. I posted a followup today with some info you may find useful. It seems to be up over there, so you can go check it out or I can post the info here if that's what I should be doing now – have we abandoned the old forum altogether?
Mevotech & SKP info (my front end rebuild)
- Thread starter Torque
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2023
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- 1,040
- Location
- North Ridgeville, OH
- Vehicle Details
- 1997 Thunderbird 4.6, 1998 Mark VIII LSC
Yep... everything (and just about everybody) is here now!
Grog6
Moderator
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- Sep 22, 2023
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- Harriman, TN
- Vehicle Details
- 2x 1996 Cougars, 1997 Tbird 4.6's all.
You are always able to post your content where you wish; copyright rules now say tht anything you say is copyrighted by you. You accepted our Terms of service to post here, as well as their tos there. Both give the respective sites the right to post your comments in a non-exclusive license Which means you can publish them wherever you want.
A lot of us have become persona non gratae over there and can't see it.
Well, I won't paste the entire thread here, as it involves posts by other users, some of whom may not want theirs moved. Also, threads on TCCoA are visible to me while not logged in, so I assume this is the case for everyone else who doesn't login (unless they banned your IPs, but then there's VPN and Tor). If someone wants to refresh their memory, they should be able to do so there, at least for now. With that in mind, I'll just paste my final thoughts/results on the recent job, in case someone contemplating using Mevotech and SKP front end components finds them useful:
The Mevotech supreme lower arm that I kept (the one that came with Zerk as advertised), inner and outer tie rods, and stabilizer links fit well and seem well made.
The Mevotech supreme upper arm ball joint pins/stems/studs aren't machined properly. They friction fit in the knuckle clamp, but they are too large diameter for the knuckle clamp bolt to be inserted past them. I had to grind down the pins a bit on the bolt side.
Yes, each pin has 2 diameters, but even the smaller diameter lower half of the pin impedes the bolt. Also, I wanted the pin inserted into the clamp fully, like the previous arms, rather than half way, for maximum clamp grip and so that the boots will sit on the knuckle for maximum sealing efficacy. Yes, this does mean the arm bushings experience about half an inch worth of additional torsional stress/preload vs. mounting only the lower half (smaller diameter) of the pins, but I doubt this will cause premature wear on the bushings. If, after doing the rear end rebuild soon, getting new tires and 4-wheel alignment, I feel this pin mounting is causing reduced stability, I can back them off and clamp only the smaller diameter half (assuming the clamp can be squeezed in that much).
The cotter pins Mevotech supplied with the outer rods are nearly impossible to get inserted into the bolt holes. One side absolutely refused to go in, despite the bolt hole being in perfect alignment with the castle nut crenellation after the "torqued to spec plus nearest" rule. I ended up breaking off half of that cotter pin and using only one half. I may go back in and use a slightly smaller pin later, but I doubt there will be problems with this one as-is.
One of the upper arm boots was damaged (cut) at the factory, right at the retaining ring, and I didn't see it until I opened the plastic bag the arm came in – a reminder to always fully examine items as soon as you receive them. Hopefully, keeping the joint well lubed will help prevent debris/water incursion and it won't suffer premature failure. I suppose I could smear some gasket compound on the outside of the boot and see whether that sticks to the boot. Is there a better way to seal up a cut boot? It probably doesn't flex much at that location, so perhaps weatherproof tape with super sticky adhesive might work as well as gasket compound. I'm not going to waste time trying to get a replacement boot from Mevotech, or going through the hell of removing the arm and replacing the boot (or trying to replace it on-vehicle), even in the extremely unlikely event that Mevotech were to cooperate.
The SKP lower arm from RockAuto did come with Zerk, and the arm fit well on the car. It seems as well made as the Mevotech supreme arm.
The original '96 rack boots are still in great shape, so I reused them instead of the new Mevotech supreme boots I purchased.
Everything's nice and tight up front now. There seems to be some oversteer, but it could just be that I'm used to driving with such dangerously loose suspension components and now it's normally much more responsive instead. Some perceived instability is likely due to my eyeballed camber (looks to be slightly positive still), combined with uneven tread wear from the worn suspension. I'll probably tinker with the camber to try to rough it in a bit more accurately. Or, this instability could be due to the rear suspension being totally shot and that's throwing the car around. Or, it could be due to how I clamped the upper arm pins – perhaps bushing resistance/wind-up is trying to lift the wheels? I'll find out when I get the rear end rebuilt.
The Mevotech supreme lower arm that I kept (the one that came with Zerk as advertised), inner and outer tie rods, and stabilizer links fit well and seem well made.
The Mevotech supreme upper arm ball joint pins/stems/studs aren't machined properly. They friction fit in the knuckle clamp, but they are too large diameter for the knuckle clamp bolt to be inserted past them. I had to grind down the pins a bit on the bolt side.
Yes, each pin has 2 diameters, but even the smaller diameter lower half of the pin impedes the bolt. Also, I wanted the pin inserted into the clamp fully, like the previous arms, rather than half way, for maximum clamp grip and so that the boots will sit on the knuckle for maximum sealing efficacy. Yes, this does mean the arm bushings experience about half an inch worth of additional torsional stress/preload vs. mounting only the lower half (smaller diameter) of the pins, but I doubt this will cause premature wear on the bushings. If, after doing the rear end rebuild soon, getting new tires and 4-wheel alignment, I feel this pin mounting is causing reduced stability, I can back them off and clamp only the smaller diameter half (assuming the clamp can be squeezed in that much).
The cotter pins Mevotech supplied with the outer rods are nearly impossible to get inserted into the bolt holes. One side absolutely refused to go in, despite the bolt hole being in perfect alignment with the castle nut crenellation after the "torqued to spec plus nearest" rule. I ended up breaking off half of that cotter pin and using only one half. I may go back in and use a slightly smaller pin later, but I doubt there will be problems with this one as-is.
One of the upper arm boots was damaged (cut) at the factory, right at the retaining ring, and I didn't see it until I opened the plastic bag the arm came in – a reminder to always fully examine items as soon as you receive them. Hopefully, keeping the joint well lubed will help prevent debris/water incursion and it won't suffer premature failure. I suppose I could smear some gasket compound on the outside of the boot and see whether that sticks to the boot. Is there a better way to seal up a cut boot? It probably doesn't flex much at that location, so perhaps weatherproof tape with super sticky adhesive might work as well as gasket compound. I'm not going to waste time trying to get a replacement boot from Mevotech, or going through the hell of removing the arm and replacing the boot (or trying to replace it on-vehicle), even in the extremely unlikely event that Mevotech were to cooperate.
The SKP lower arm from RockAuto did come with Zerk, and the arm fit well on the car. It seems as well made as the Mevotech supreme arm.
The original '96 rack boots are still in great shape, so I reused them instead of the new Mevotech supreme boots I purchased.
Everything's nice and tight up front now. There seems to be some oversteer, but it could just be that I'm used to driving with such dangerously loose suspension components and now it's normally much more responsive instead. Some perceived instability is likely due to my eyeballed camber (looks to be slightly positive still), combined with uneven tread wear from the worn suspension. I'll probably tinker with the camber to try to rough it in a bit more accurately. Or, this instability could be due to the rear suspension being totally shot and that's throwing the car around. Or, it could be due to how I clamped the upper arm pins – perhaps bushing resistance/wind-up is trying to lift the wheels? I'll find out when I get the rear end rebuilt.
