Lincoln Mark VIII Doesn't Have Struts!!!

Hello all! I finally got hold of a Ford service manual and scanned a page from that manual that clearly states that the Lincoln Mark VIII does not have McPherson Struts in the front suspension. According to Ford Motor Company, the folks who designed and engineered the car, the Mark VIII has an "Air Spring & Shock Assembly" up front. I am completely baffled at the persistence with which people use the term "strut" to incorrectly describe the Mark VIII's front air shocks. There are many different types of suspension designs. In my experience during my short-lived career as a mechanic, I worked on just about every type of suspension known to man. Everything from the simplest straight axle with transverse leaf spring to struts, to control arms, to DeDion axles, to complicated multilink setups. Each design is different. They may share components, but the overall design varies. In the case of struts vs. control arms, there are several distinct differences between the types. In a strut design, there is no upper control arm. The strut is bolted directly to the spindle and acts as a damper, steering kingpin, and upper suspension locating link. Because the strut is bolted to the spindle, it turns with the steering, requiring a bearing cap on top of the spring so it doesn't scrape against the strut tower. In a UCA/LCA design, there is an upper control arm and the shock bolts to either the upper or lower control arm. In this design, the shock acts only as a damper, nothing else. There is a major difference between strut and control arm suspension designs. The Mark VIII does not have a strut-type suspension by any stretch of the imagination. That fact is clearly visible when the Mark's suspension is compared to more plebian strut designs. There's absolutely no ambiguity or vagueness. The differences are clearly visible to anyone with eyes. It can be (and has been) easily proven that Mark VIII's don't have McPherson struts, yet people still call them struts. It makes absolutely no sense at all. The two types of suspensions are so distinctly different, I don't understand why it's even an issue. And what's interesting to me is that any time a thread on this site starts talking about the differences between struts and control arms, when I clearly demonstrate the differences and prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the Mark VIII doesn't have struts, all activity on the thread just stops. I think the pro-strut folks are in denial. Oh well. They just can't admit that they're wrong I guess.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Lincoln Mark VIII
• Lincoln
• Mark
• VIII
• Control Arms
• Suspension
• Strut
• McPherson Strut
• Ball Joint
• Inferior
• High Performance

[H20MarkVIII]

the mark viii does indeed have shocks only; the shocks do not swivel like stuts. Struts have a bearing on the top of the shocks in which enable to the shocks to swivel.