Project Ugly Horse: Part VI

Filed under: Aftermarket, Budget, Performance, Hatchback, Ford, Humor, Specialty

Solid Axle? What Solid Axle?

I was fully prepared to embark on a seven-day journey down a rabbit hole of broken bolts, internet hearsay and consternation.

This should not have gone this easily. Having a long and checkered history of simple projects punctuated by much wailing and gnashing of knuckles, I was fully prepared to embark on a seven-day journey down a rabbit hole of broken bolts, internet hearsay and consternation when I finally decided to lay hands on the '89 Mustang with the goal of relieving the car of its stock rear axle. Instead, it took less than a full morning's worth of work to carve the old 7.5-inch solid axle from its moorings and mock up something, well, different.

You see, after my enablers friends at a local Ford Mustang salvage shop made mention of how easy it would be to plunk an independent rear suspension from a 2004 Mustang Cobra in the ass-end of my decrepit hatch, I became consumed with the notion. Sure, anyone with half a lick of sense and the synapses necessary to fire off a Google search will tell you the stock hardware can be made to handle quite well with a few modest modifications, but the IRS held a number of unique appeals. Chiefly, the conversion actually made financial sense.

Listen, you can't give me any look I haven't seen from my wife on a weekly basis for the past four years, and sheltered as I am from the glare of your skeptical eyes, I'll expound on the dollars and cents argument for gracing my $400 car with more than $900 worth of engineering.

Need to catch up on Project Ugly Horse? Catch up on all the earlier posts here!

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Project Ugly Horse: Part VI originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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