I am replacing the old front suspension on my 66 coupe with new scott drake parts. do I just re-use the old UCA shims then take her in for a pro alignment when I am done or pitch em and put her together without them?

 

I did the same thing a few years ago and kept track of the number of shims under each side and put them back with the new arms. I only drove it like this for the 10 miles to the alignment shop, but it drove pretty well considering. I would recommend it.

 

thanks 90RR just left em stacked on the old CAs will just switch em over on the rebuild

 

by the way, NICE RIDES!!

 

Thanks. Good luck on your project. Post some pics.

 

While you are doing this, I would strongly recommend performing the Arning drop on the UCAs - lowering them 1 inch.

One thing that Carroll Shelby did to improve the way these car handled was to drop the Upper Control Arms (UCAs) 1" down and 1/8" over-towards the rear for '65/'66 cars and 1" down on the '67/'70 cars.

By simply drilling two new 1/2" holes (17/32 to be 100% accurate) you can make a huge improvement in the way your car handles.

You will need a "performance alignment" after this, but it is well worth it. look here for some details -

http://home.bresnan.net/~dazed/drop

 

Word of advise, before you haul your proj into an alignment shop, go to the shop and look at the alignments they're doing. I took my coupe into a very reputable shop, was told up and down they could do the alignment. Ended up sitting there for 4 hours while the tech tried to get the machine beyond reading millimeters, and he had zero understanding of caster, camber, toe. Since then I've built my own tools to do basic alignment so I don't have to go through that again. If you have a welder, I can give some tips. As for shims, stock is a good starting point. First priority, go buy a digital angle finder at Sears for $25, and make sure you have a tape measure, it'll be your best friend. From there, it's a piece of cake to measure your alignment.

With basic tools, with a shelby drop I was able to obtain -1* of camber, +2.5* caster and 1/16" toe, then let the shop "inspect it", and validated my effort at no cost.

 

suggest wire tying each set of shims together into a small pack, then placing them with the extra wire end pointed up. This makes them easy to grab and change out as an entire pack. Managing multiple shims at once, while supporting a UCA. . . sucks!