89 Police Sedan Rear Control Arm PIC

[89mercury]

The Police Sedan rear control arms are different than regular control arms. I used a white line to highlight the area.

[mrltd]

Yup, sure is. Nothing a drill and grinder can't fix though.

Wierd that that doesn't look like it has the oddball bushings in it though.

[89mercury]

When I installed my 1” rear police sway bar I just drilled one hole per control arm and bolted the sway bar on, one hole was already drilled. When I was installing the rear sway bar I thought that the fit could be better. They cost me $30 buck for the pair, but now I have the factory correct control arms. I’ll install them when I pull the rear axle to do my gears and locker.

[mrltd]

Same thing I did/do. I trimmed the area to get them to fit and drilled the second hole. Most of the times it's too much of a PITA to get the arms also....Always nice to have the correct arms though. Might want to put some new bushings in them before you install 'em.

[88grandmarq]

ANY car that came with a factory rear sway bar will have rear lower control arms like that. My 89 CV w/factory rear sway bar (1/2") has the same control arms

[DuceAnAHalf]

with mine, i cut the vertical lip part off and then bent it flat with a big pair of pliers. would not be so bad if i had not have already boxed the control arms and was trying to bend the edge of the weld.

[89mercury]

Look at this….




The rear control arms I have on my 89 Grand Marquis are .08 thick (left pic), and the ones I bought today are .10 thick (right pic). So the police rear control arms are made out of 12 gauge steel and the non-police rear control arms are made out of 14 gauge steel if the chart I googled is right.

Thickness (Inches)
Gauge Num.---Nominal---Tolerance Range
12 gauge------.1046------.1106 to .0986
14 gauge------.0747------.0797 to .0697

[89mercury]

I wanted to add that the CV police car was a 1989 and my Grand Marquis is a 1989.

Here is the marking on the police control arm.

[Tiggie]

My police rear sway bolted directly to the factory rear control arms on my '82. No drilling. No cutting. No trimming. Four bolts and bam it was installed in about three minutes.

But I did notice the P72 I stole it from did have those special bent lips. I didn't see a need for 'em since it bolted fine to my original ones.

Nice to know the police ones are thicker. Earlier on in the Panther years, I think Ford recalled the police rear control arms because they were too weak,

[89mercury]

Next time I’m at the junkyard I’ll measure the rear upper control arm on the 89 police car. My 89 stock non-police upper control arms are .08”, same as my current lower arms. It would be nice if the police upper control arms were .10”, but I don’t think they are. The police lower arms are thicker because of the 1” sway bar that mounts to them.

[Blaze86Vic]

SWEET! Glad I got those on my car now!

[gadget73]

Rear lower arms on my 86 had the holes too, and it had no bar from the factory. It is a tow package car though, so perhaps its got the heavier police arms? Must measure that when I replace the bushings in them.

[Blaze86Vic]

You know, while you have them off, you should dimension out the size of all the bushings on it. Outside and inside diameter, as well as length and any other dimensions. Then we could have poly-graphite sets fabbed up.

[89mercury]

[1987cp]

You know, while you have them off, you should dimension out the size of all the bushings on it. Outside and inside diameter, as well as length and any other dimensions. Then we could have poly-graphite sets fabbed up.

Hey, that's a great idea. Actually, someone should do that with all the bushings (though maybe it's already been done for some and I've missed it). I've often been discouraged that P-S-T doesn't list high-performance bushing sets for our cars.

And it's great to see the pics of the arms... that'll be a great reference when inspecting my own arms!