Cougar Articulating Struts vs. Mustang Struts

[ZFORCE]

Well, if you have been following my posts, you know that Dirty Harry is my 67 Mustang Convertible and I am lucky to have a 67 Cougar parts car as well. I originally bought the Cougar to satisfy my urge to restomod a car. I couldn't find enough Cougar reading material, so I made the mistake of digging out my old library of Mustang stuff...the fever began. Then, I came across Dirty Harry, a 67 vert for sale, and by then, I had a full blown case of Mustang fever..I bought Dirty Harry.

Well, I did find out that Cougars were supposed to be higher end Mustangs and had a nicer ride and many nice options. As it turns out, my Cougar had Power Disc Brakes, and the PO had replaced the lower control arms. So when I checked into compatibility, I found out that the upper control arms were the same, but the parts interchange listed different LCAs. Then I found out that many people replace the LCAs with Mustang stuff, but in doing so they had to replace the strut rod. I wondered why? Then I discovered that the Cougar strut was referred to as an Articulating strut...what the heck was this thing? Well, here are some pictures of IT along with my LCA assembly from Dirty Harry.



I have decided to put the Articulating Struts on Dirty Harry. They were supposed to have the advantage of a better ride. Since it is such a simple conversion, I will also keep my stock 67 Mustang Struts.

[ZFORCE]

Don't know why the photos won't post, but it's late, I will try again tomorrow!

[GypsyR]

Link to pic.
Maybe a link will work? I got curious and sniffed it out. I've never noticed this on a Cougar. You've got me, I can't see what the benefit is. The lower arm and strut are supposed to behave like a big A-frame. I can't see how that pivot would help anything. I can see where it would add an extra place for wear and unwanted slop though. Also a bit of extra unsprung weight, which is never good.
I'm curious if anybody else can come up with what it benefits. Does it really give a cushier ride? How?

[Helmantel]

It was discussed a while ago. It was only used in 1967. I'm not sure what the benefits are either.

I can think of one (small) benefit: If you add caster you pull the LCA forward. On Mustang style setup, the strut rod is fixed on the LCA, so if you rotate the LCA around its inner pivot, the strut rod will move a little off center (where it attaches to the frame bracket). To go from 0 to 3 degrees caster, the lower ball joint moves more than 1/2 forward. The movement will be less at the (front) end of the strut rod, but still noticable. With a the bushing at the other end, the angle between LCA and strut rod can change and the strut rod will stay centered.

This whole "problem" can also be solved by slotting one of the two bolt holes on either the LCA or the strut rods a little and loosening the bolts when setting caster.

[mustangsurfer]

Although the 67 Cougar and Mustang LCA looks the same for Mustang and Cougar, they are a different piece. The strut rod holes are slightly different between the two pieces, and that is why you have to run the Mustang Strut Rod when running a replacement Mustang LCA on your Cougar. There was a stack of NOS Cougar LCAs that hit the market awhile back and were advertised as Mustang, and people found this out.

Your Cougar PDB setup will work with your Mustang control arms just fine though.

Dave

[ZFORCE]

I figured out the problem with the pictures, the VMF would not load the pictures because the file names were too long. I shortened them and they work now..FYI for others, don't use long picture names.

As for the lower control arms, they look identical, to me, even the holes for the struts to bolt up to look the same.

[GT289]

It was a NVH thing (Noise, Vibration and Harshness).
The Cougar setup does isolate better than the
Mustang setup. It doesn't really have any other
advantages. It does have some performance dis-
advantages though- partiularly in holding a
caster setting in a stressful environment- racing.

[ZFORCE]

Thanks for the info, do you have any references or article links that I could read to educate me further on the subject?

[GT289]

Not really. NVH is a major concern at the OE level.
The OE Manufacturers want not a whinny,
moo or peep out of their cars in general. In
this case we're talking about Mercury- they
saw the Cougar as a "stepping-stone" into
something a little more luxurious.... like a Park
Lane or a Marquis or maybe a full size Lincoln.
As for racing- it's well known that you're going
to get some interesting dynamic variance in camber
settings on Mustangs and Cougars, particularly
when in a turn and in a turn taken
at FULL speed you really don't want any input
as far as camber change. This is the reason why
there are so many aftermarket manufacturers doing
upgraded adjustable strut rod assemblies for
these cars. The original isn't the cat's meow as
far as performace is concerned.
I've been in the auto biz at the OE, aftermarket
and performance aftermarket level my entire life.
Wish there was a good book out there, I'd definitely
recommend it. Suspension design to this day is viewed
as a "black art" and how solutions are arrived at
sometimes is guesswork and other times it's high-dollar
computer generated, but it's always a "secret."

[ZFORCE]

Thanks for the response. I agree with you on that "black art" comment, it seems that there are as many "new" mustang front suspensions as there were models of early mustangs. With coil overs, and MII kits to the true M-strut type suspensions, I'm starting to wonder if maybe some of these suspensions are just change for the sake of change. I'm no road racer, but I do feel the front suspension on the 65-70 mustangs could use some improvement.

I like Opentracker's mods, as he keeps it simple, and let's face it, if Shelby and Ford could win real races with these old suspensions, they can't be that bad for the average street driver of today (I think so much of this suspension conversion hype is just that, it's beginning to feel like the 4x4 lift them to the sky fad of the 80s!)

Maybe if I switched out that Cougar articulating strut rubber bushing with a heim joint I could eliminate some of that movement. I haven't seen Anything on modifying these 67 Cougar parts, has anyone else (links please?) Thanks

[Helmantel]

If you replace it with a heim joint, you might as well use a Mustang strut rod. This is not a pivot point, so whether it's a heim joint or a solid rod should make no difference, other than that the rod is simpler and lighter.

[ZFORCE]

Thanks for the responses, but I have to differ with you. If Mercury wanted to simply isolate the LCA for vibration only, they would have just used an isolation spacer between the LCA and the strut rod itself. The fact that Mercury chose to put a "joint" in the strut rod seems to indicate that they were concerned about flex as well as vibration. In addition, the name that Mercury associated with the design is "Articulating" strut rod, which again indicates that movement is integrated and anticipated in it's design.

[180 Out]

My recollection is that the articulated strut rod was intended for all Falcons but was axed for cost-cutting reasons.

I have a Brooklands reprint book of contemporary magazine stories on the roll-out of the Cougar for the '67 model year (October 1966 and up). I haven't read from it lately but what I recall the mags would just mention that Mercury had put the articulated strut rods in the Cougar (and "voided" (swiss cheesed?) front leaf spring eye bushings, too) as an upgrade over the Mustang, but without any tech as to why this is an upgrade.

Believe it or not, the Cougar when new was marketed as a "European"-like car, which I always took it to mean the Jaguar XKE. (It sure wasn't a Fiat 500 they were thinking of.) The wood dash, the toggle switches, the leather upholstery. In the '69 model year (or so), Mercury switched to a "Man's Car" tag line.