Question for you professional car restorers...

When I took off my upper control arms, the passenger side had shims between the c/a and the shock tower, about 1/8" but not on the driver side. Always was curious on how/why these got here. Would this have been an assembly item, or added afterwards?
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No pro here, but I have an idea. Early mustangs, say 65-66 had shims on the control arms for alignment purposes. From your sig pic yours looks like a 69, maybe the standard adjustment didn't have enough range to get the car aligned, so they added some shims?
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Shims were pretty common from the factory on the shock tower Fords. My 60 Falcon had 'em. Might have to do with the unibody tolerances. Don't know for sure.
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Here you go...

Ford, Chevy, chrysler & dodge, and everybody who used an upper controll arm like what you see on yours, (and there are a lot of 'em) used those shims an nearly every vehicle out there, and yes it's to make everything align up correctly. I've seen them on chebby truck upper controll arms as thick as 3/4 of an inch on the foreward edge and as little as an 1/8th on the trailing bolt... some Mopars foresaw this problem and put in ovaled washers on the bolts on the front and rear to compensate for using shims... It all stems from the way/quality and machining when building it, like Phat said... and to set the caster and camber like Mosnster is going to say in a minute or two...

FE

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: FEandGoingBroke on 12/15/04 11:00am ]</font>

Not that I'm a "Professional Restorer" ... But

More shims to the front of the control arm frame mount will push the top of the spindle to the rear ...

More shims to the rear of the control arm frame mount will push the top of the spindal forward ...


Isn't this how "Caster" is set on this type suspension[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_confused.gif[/img]
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Not at all uncommon, more like the standard. The shims are to set camber and caster. They even make "problem solver" upper shafts that have longer bolts to allow more shims. Normally the problem is a tower thats moved inward from a wreck or just wear and tear. Best to account for the shims ahead of time and put them back to at least get you close and have a good starting point.
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Yeap ... I guess the obvous is ...

More (or less) shims to the front or rear changes "Caster"


Equal amounts to (or from) both the front and rear changes "Camber"
[addsig]

If this is on a 67-70, I'd check close to see if something is bent. Early cars used them, but later cars used the lower cam bolt and adjustable strut rods for camber / caster respectively

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_tup.gif[/img] Mustangs up to '66 used shims for caster/camber. '67-on use what 427stang says. It's easy to see why ford made the switch.

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2004-12-15 01:38, My427stang wrote:
If this is on a 67-70, I'd check close to see if something is bent. Early cars used them, but later cars used the lower cam bolt and adjustable strut rods for camber / caster respectively
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE> Think I should check this then, as I have the cam assy,
Thanks all!
Paul