Hey, I was test fitting my MM STB to my car today, and I'm having problems with the mounts for the strut towers themselves getting into the nuts on the stock strut plates. Did any of you guys have this problem? I dunno why, but on the passenger side strut tower, it's bad enough that the mount is actually right up against the side of the nut and it looks like I'm gonna have to grind the mount a little bit. Also the mounts actually rest on the "shoulder" of the nut (because they're those d style nuts that don't require a washer). If I put it in like that, will it be ok?
I was getting a little po'ed today because I put the brace in the car and installed the bolts at the firewall like the instructions said to do, and the strut tower mounts were both sitting up a half inch off the top of the strut towers. I can tell this install is gonna be a bitch.
Is it a T-bird specific one, or is it for a Mustang?
There is no specific one. The engine bays are supposed to be the same.
Yeah...I was wondering if there was some minute difference between the Thunderbird and Mustang strut plates.
Could it be a warped frame?
That's what I was thinking. People have used Mustang strut tower braces without a prob. You did get one for a Fox Stang right?
Yeah it's for a Fox...
I don't really know how it could be a tweaked frame as I'm fairly certain this car was never wrecked, and it fits mostly the same on both strut towers.
guess I'll just make it work.
my BBK one fit fine for a fox mustang with my old mounts. now i have cc plates and im switching to a MM stb because they have some better clearance around the cc plates and my upper intake. do you have any pictures? this picture is of a friend of mines engine compartment. its a 91 GT, but it should give you an idea of how its sopposed to fit. you car was never hit in the side was it?https://home.comcast.net/~larrendeuce/PC070050.JPG (http://"https://home.comcast.net/~larrendeuce/PC070050.JPG")
I replaced my strut mounts with thier (MM) camber plates at the same time I did my strut brace. I did have a fitment issue on the passenger side strut tower where the STB mount interfered with the camber plate spacer. I had to grind a little off of the edge of the brace mount and relocate a bolt hole slightly next to where I did the grinding so that it would clear the camber plate spacer. It's not on the car right now because I'm in the middle of a head swap but I'll see if I can take a pic of it off the car so you can see what I had to do...
*edit* I found a pic of my engine compartment from before I removed the brace and here's a pic of the 'mod' I had to make to install it. Too bad I took the engine pic from the drivers side but you can still see the passenger side mount.
Dogcharmer, that is exactly where mine needs clearanced to clear the nut on the strut tower. So I guess that is an issue.
Also from looking at the pic of that Mustang, the Thunderbird strut plates (or at least the turbo coupe PRC strut plates) are in fact different from the mustang, so that must be where my problems are coming from.
It's really a small issue though... I ground just enough off with my dremmel tool and tightend the one bolt where there was no interference. Then I just drilled the new hole for the other bolt. I almost screwed up and drilled it too close to the edge because I let the drill bit walk a little but it worked out fine.
Oh, and my car felt noticably tighter with the brace installed.
So if I might ask, why did you drill a different hole? Did you not want to use the other one with it being so close to the edge, or what?
I think the bolt head may have been too close to the CC plate spacer but cant remember exactly...
yeah my BBK one fits great before and after the MM cc plates. my MM strut tower brace should be hear by now, but i guess its comeing early next week. i wonder if i'll have to notch it like u did too. eather way i'll do a comparison shot so at least we got a record of it. does it fit well otherwise?
Other than notching that one side, it fit perfect.
You guys might have an easier time fitting it into the 5.0 cars...my TC has so much running right along the top of the firewall pinchweld (wiring harness, vac lines etc) that it makes the firewall bolts really hard to get at.
I had to take a bench grinder to my KB brace for that pesky location too...ground off a few mm of material and it bolted up nicely. Should be the same trick for your brace.
Good luck.
im in the middle of putting the MM stb in now. that passanger side needs to be ground down and the bottom of the CC plate where the bolts are welded... that gets in the way of the strut tower brace top bolt so im going to maybe have to redrill that. that one bolt is real close to the spacer, but it fits... bairly. tho i may have to redrill so i dont run into the bolt plate under the strut.