At this point, I have worked on a few different types of spindles. I started the restoration on the 67 coupe with 68 disc style spindles. After some issues, I went back to stock 67 spindles, which is what is on the coupe currently, with Wilwood brakes.

For my son’s coupe, I installed 70 style disc spindles with the big pin, and stock disc brakes. Those came with the 65 project pile and appear to be original salvage from an early 70’s mustang or other applicable Ford. They were different than the stock spindle, and also had the later caliper mount style.

Now, with the 65, I have another spindle to add to the experience. This one looks like the 67, but where the 4 bolts are on the face, the area is square, not contoured. Other than that, they look the same, with the same size pin. The 65 casting is C5OA, with the passenger side upside down for some reason.

The front suspension was removed as an assembly from the 65 by the previous owner, with the upper and lower controls arms still attached, as well as the drum brakes. I tore them down and cleaned up the spindles one at a time, passenger side first, which came out looking great.

Once I broke the driver side down and started cleaning it up, I found a mess. The pin was damaged and the bearing face was significantly scored. Something went terribly wrong earlier in this spindles life, then the brakes were put back on like nothing happened. For all this work, I can’t do the same.

Rather than clean them any further, I decided to scrap the driver side and find replacements. Doing a little searching found them to be about $200 each for original used parts. This didn’t leave me feeling great for getting something that was not scored or damaged, so I looked for after market.

I talked to Shawn at StreetOrTrack who put me on to their replacement spindles with the 65 geometry but 70 size pins. I don’t know that I need the big pins, but I like the idea of new if I am going to be paying a similar price, so I had him send me a pair. I definitely did not want one stock and one reproduction with different spindle bearing sizes, so I replaced both.

Unboxing these was like car porn. They are much heavier than the originals, and the coating is nice. The pins are significantly larger as well. I thought I liked how my cleaned up spindles look, but these are even better. It’s a shame they won’t be seen again once they are installed.

Comparing the old on the left and new on the right, you can see they are sturdier in all aspects, particularly the pin. In addition, they have the contoured mounting plate, rather then the flat square. This is significant since the after market 13″ brakes I ordered from Street or Track take advantage of the contour for the caliper mounting hardware. One less thing I have to deal with on the original spindles.

From here, I need to replace the bearing races in the rotors before I get too far along with loading the brakes on the spindles. Once that’s done, they should go together pretty quick, then on to test fitting them with the Street or Track coilover system.

It feels a little like Christmas.