ball joint flip

[d.c.]

Hi Guys,
Here's the situation, I am trying to lower the front suspension of my 53 buick project. I have ditched the original front end and have installed a far more modern clip in its place. Due to hood to engine clearance concerns the new front clip cannot be installed any higher then it currently is. The stance on the car is way high and needs to be dropped down a good 4 or more inches. Belltech offers drop coils for my application, but that will only give me 2 inches at best. To get some more drop out of things I am considering flipping my ball joints upside down and reinstalling the spindle on them. Currently the spindle mounts below both the upper and lower control arms. By flipping ball joints and mounting the spindle above both control arms I believe I can get the 2 to 3 additional inches I am looking for. Obviously ball joint shafts are conical, and my spindles will have to be sleeved and redrilled, but thats ok. In theory this sounds great but I have two points of concern. First will it throw off my geometry and cause alignment/ handling issues? Second this in my mind will place all the load on the ball joint nut rather the on the body of the ball joint. Is this wise, has it been done by anyone? What are your thoughts?

[David Pozzi]

I think the control arm would hit the spindle in bump. I'd adapt a drop spindle to fit.

[shizzy]

what front clip are we speaking of? Can the engine be mounted any lower in the clip?

[d.c.]

No the engine is as low as it can go. I have modified the crossmember significantly to get it down as far as I can. The front clip is a bit of an odd ball for this sort of thing, its from a 96 ram 3500. Why ? Well I decided to put a cummins 12 valve in her. I bought a complete donor truck for the engine and tranny, and then said why not use the front end from it as well. Sadly, it would seem I am running into my own why not right now. lol

[shep]

Can you get dropped springs? Maybe the combination of the spring and spindle can get you where you want to be.

[d.c.]

I can get a drop spring from belltech. I can also adapt to drop spindle as Pozzi suggested, but the latter would cause me to swap out control arms. I would prefer not to do this if I don't have to which is what lead me to the ball joint idea.