A customer stopped in yesterday carrying a spindle. In itself, I recognize that this sentence requires an explanation. He was curious as to the origin of said spindle… was it early Mustang? Pinto? Mustang II? It certainly looked like a Mustang II spindle, but he just wanted to double check. We have a pair of spindles which we use for a caliper bracket fixture, so we brought them out for a little compar-o. Here are the differences:

 

The spindle on the left (the clean one) is a 1974-78 Mustang II spindle. On the right is the spindle that was brought in to compare; it’s from a 1971-73 Pinto. Between the ball joint holes (vertically, inside-to-inside) on the Pinto spindle is 5-1/16″ while the Mustang II is 5-7/8″. Also, the steering arm hole center to the lower ball joint center dimension is 4-1/2″ on the Pinto spindle but 5″ on the MII. The lower caliper bracket hole is in a different location as well.

So, on first glance, they look quite similar. However, you now have the ammo required for those late night “tech sessions” so when your buddy tells you the difference between the fabric smell on the early Corvair versus the last production run, you’ll be able to counter with this useful information on the differences between 71-73 Pinto and Mustang II spindles.