Crown Victoria IFS - LCA Rebuild

[Aerocoupe]

I have posted on a couple of threads about tubular control arms and options with regards to doing a OEM style rebuild on the CV IFS. I got to the point where I just could not believe that a person could not find the LCA forward bushing so that the LCA you got with your swap CV IFS could be rebuilt. I have been noodling around for about a year and finally found a replacement bushing. The brand is MevoTech which is a Canadian company with P/N MS40401. I bought a set off of EBay for $28 plus shipping and they got to the house on Saturday. A word of caution here is that when ordering them only order a quantity of one as it comes in a package of two. I went ahead and used the c-clamp style ball joint / bushing removal and installation tool you can get as a loaner tool from the parts houses to pop the old bushings out of the LCA's. It took some force but once they moved they just completely popped out. I compared the old ones to the new ones and dimensionally (used a caliper) they are equal. I also took some side by side pics and have attached those. I dropped one of the new bushings into the LCA and it went down to the same point the old one did which left it with about 1/2" that would need to press into the LCA which will work nicely for the needed interference fit.

What got me going on all this was:
1) I have the time to wait
2) I wanted to powder coat the LCA's
3) New LCA's are just stupid expensive

Basically a new LCA comes with a new forward bushing and new ball joint. The cheaper ones are aluminum LCA's (MevoTech, Moog, etc.) and run about $150 each for non-fleet/police and about $175 each for fleet/police. The more expensive ones are stamped steel (FoMoCo) and run about $225 each for non-fleet/police and $250 each for fleet/police. None of these come with the rear frame mount bushing but they are about $45 each for standard or fleet/police.

To compare costs the FoMoCo ball joints are about $100 for a pair and the MevoTech forward bushings are $28 a pair. Toss in around $15 for shipping costs and all the parts to rebuild two LCA's is $143. I am going to get the LCA's powder coated for $50 so I will be at $193 total. So for the price of a new aluminum LCA with shipping I can rebuild both of the LCA's that came with my CV IFS. It could be done for less it you do not want to mess with any kind of coating on your LCA's or just a few bucks on some rattle can paint and elbow grease to clean them up and prep for paint.

I will post up some before and after pics of the LCA's disassembled, coated, and then put together. Here are the pics of the forward bushings:

Pictures of the bag the bushings came in. Only showing this as there were two stickers on the bag with different part numbers slash bar code stuff:




Bushing comparison side by side:

[Aerocoupe]

Here are the pics of the control arms along with all the other parts. Still waiting on the coater to finish with the bolting. Getting all the stock bolts recoated in a clear zinc for $50. Could not touch that buying new and I did not want to attempt to refinish them myself especially in the cold temps we have been having.

Control arm pics before:




After powder coating:



Should have them put together next weekend (using a hydraulic press at another location to press in the forward bushing and ball joint on each one) and then will move on to assembling the front suspension onto the engine crossmember.

When I tore the front suspension down I tossed the UCA's, springs, struts, wheel hub/bearing assemblies, rotors, and calipers. I kept the hardware from the factory coil over assemblies (reused on new coil over setup), knuckles, lower control arms, engine cradle, and bolting. So this is basically what I had left over:



Here is all the stuff that will go back on the engine cradle minus stuff not pictures but have stashed back like new wheel hubs, C5 corvette calipers, caliper adapters, GT500 rotors, ADTR front sway bar, SS braided front brake lines for the C5 calipers, lower ball joints, ADTR camber kit, and the LCA rear bushings. I almost had the engine cradle powder coated black but decided to go clear as rock chips would show shiny aluminum behind the black.



Some may say that it would have been about the same cost to do a Mustang II IFS or the like but I like that all my parts are readily available at parts stores.

[Aerocoupe]

Finally got all the bolting back from the platers a few weeks ago after a small setback and started putting the front end together. They did not let me know that they did not have the ability to media blast on site. They tried to chemically remove the rust and the coating job did not turn out good. They asked if I could get them media blasted and they would recoat them. So I took them to my powder coat guy and $20 later they were cleaned up. Took them back to the coaters and got them back about a week later looking a whole lot better.

Anyhow, here is a picture of the bolting after the clear zinc plating:



So here are the control arms all assembled. I F'd around with installing the ball joints and bushings for a few hours down at my dad's shop last weekend and finally called it a no go and took them to a local machine shop. $60 later here they are:







All in I have about $155 per control arm (includes the rear fleet bushing that mounts to the frame) which is less than the complete $250 FoMoCo units and a little more than the cheapest complete control arms that do not seem to have a fleet option and are aluminum. Will complete the assembly on the IFS next weekend and put it under the truck.