Volare swaps

[cudaboy]

I found this message board post while looking up volare swap info. I thought the reply by elpolacko about the downsides was interesting. What do you guys say about it ?
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/show ... hp?t=13359

[Rusty_Quarters]

I have been weighing the pro's and cons of the volare swap, for a while, I had one in my garage and a spare frame, and for what it is worth, it looks like it would be pretty simple to install, with some cutting and welding skills all around not too difficult, the older Ford trucks they cut it into the bottom of the frame rails to give it more drop and allow for a lower ride, the thing that keeps me from doing the swap on my 70 is the track width, I have talked my self in and out of this swap a half dozen times, the narrower track width would possibly allow for wider tires to clear the fender when turning. I may still do this swap, but recently I have been looking at the link below which is for an Aerostar setup and looks pretty interesting, and is closer to the original track width around 63 inches.


http://groups.msn.com/slick60sfordfseri ... rsion.msnw

[Rusty_Quarters]

Sorry, had to go in the middle of the above post, just click on any of the pics on that link and then click next for a while, it shows the process of them putting one of these aerostar front suspensions in a 60's for truck, a little modification to the rack and pinion mounts and subframe to "roll" the rack back towards the cab, but other than that it is a pretty cool little setup, closer to the width of our trucks, it uses coils so you could install airbags in it fairly easily, it could be cut into the bottom of the frame for some drop without altering the coils, the frame height on it is 5 1/2" on our trucks in that location they are about 5 inches, uses modern rack and pinion steering, instead of a box, retains the same bolt pattern as our trucks 4.5 on 5, and the A arm configuration even looks pretty cool. Any one do one of these yet?

[soopernaut]

There was somebody who posted a while back who had one of these swaps in a Sweptline. A relative of theirs did the swap and they didn't really have any information about it. When I was deciding which route to take with my truck I considered it.

[Rusty_Quarters]

What did you do on your truck?

[soopernaut]

What did you do on your truck?

Nothing yet. It'll be going on a 77 D100 frame.

[Russ]

I'm not sure what he means by "out of re-manufacture for 25 years", but those front ends came under rear wheel drive Mopar cars until 1989 so parts couldn't have been out of manufacture for that long. You can also switch them to 12 inch discs with junk yard parts which might be a plus. He's correct about the fact that it was never a high performance setup and was never intended to be, but does give a good ride. I disagree with him about the steering being over assisted, but that would be an individual thing. I've had four cars with that suspension and never had a problem with any of them. He's probably right about the other things he said, but then most of us on this forum aren't really worried about the steering box hitting anything on a Ford anyway.