Freestar 5x114.3 conversion?

[Fahrzeug]

Hey everyone! Sorry this is such a long thread but I would like some feedback on this.

I've done a lot of research and staring at pictures (it's better than buying this stuff) of the Freestar and Taurus knuckles and hub/bearing assemblies and I figured this swap could possibly be done with a Gen 3. The Gen 3/4 use almost all the same suspension/steering components to the best of my knowledge.

I had made a thread on taurusclub, but not much to my surprise, nobody cared. I think I may have stumbled onto something that could help all of us out with wheel choices. It would be sweet to see a Gen 3/4 on BBS's or even the 18" '08-09 Taurus chrome wheels!

Now, I could be completely off on what I found. I really think it's a major possibility!

So, I'm asking here because everyone here is a lot more technical and knows a lot more than the crowd over there. Could it be done, I know it has in the past with a redrilling of hubs in the front and a redrill and Probe GT hubs in the back.

Anyway, here is my thread copied right from there:
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I'm not sure if anyone has asked this or even tried it, I was wondering if it was even possible. I know all of us are not impressed by the selection of 5x108 wheels. 5x114 would open up a million possibilities for us Gen 3/4 owners if this conversion is possible.

I know we can use Windstar wheels and things like that since it was built on a Taurus platform. I figured they left it mostly the same when they switched to the Freestar, but I'm not 100% if it's still on the Taurus platform. It could be on the Five Hundred/Freestyle platform.

The front hubs look almost identical but the major difference is the ABS sensor is actually integrated in the bearing it looks like (pics from Rockauto.com) Knuckle differences could also be a problem. I know the Taurus knuckle has the bracket for the ABS sensor while the Freestar does not.

Freestar w/abs

Taurus w/abs

I'm sure there is a way to bolt them up, if the sizes are exactly the same.

The other problem you would run into is rotors/pads. The easiest way is to just get your front/rear rotors/drums redrilled to 5x114, but that just seems like a pain in the ass.

Taurus Front Rotor

Freestar Front Rotor

I see a slight difference in the rotor hat height, but that could be compensating for the extra width of the hub sticking out a little more. This could interfere with the knuckle and caliper.

The other issue you would run into is the rear hubs/rotors. I had heard on SHOforum that it could be possible to run Probe GT rear hubs, and redrill your rotors. By looking at the specs, you could possibly run the GT rear rotors. You would have to convert to rear disc if you didn't have it to begin with.

I also compared sizes of the rear hubs and rotors, and they are also close.

Taurus Hub w/abs

Probe GT Hub w/abs

The only differences are the exciter ring for the ABS. You could swap them if the bearing size is the same.

Taurus Rear Rotors

Probe GT Rear Rotors

The rotors are close, but really no way to tell.

Going by the sizes, there really is not much difference in the front rotors that I can see. Looks like very slight differences. The rears could be an issue with the different hub sizes. The height is almost the same.

This is just a quick thought for everyone to ponder. I know there are lots of other things to consider like caliper brackets, calipers, etc...

I know there is no way to tell if any of this will work without actually trying it first. I will really try and do some more snooping and try to pick up a couple of these hubs for cheap and try them out if I can.

-Tim

 

[fast Ed]

Freestars were an evolution of the Windstar platform, definitely not Five Hundred/Freestyle based. Having said that, none of the brake or suspension components were carried over, all unique to 04-up Freestar. And I can't tell you if any of the mounting points are the same or not. Even though the vans look very similar externally, they did change a lot of stuff under the skin.

Probably trial & error is going to be the only way to find out for sure ...


cheers
Ed N.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

I don't think there are enough benefits to offset cost for this. You can find plenty of 5x108 wheels that look great. I'd rather be able to replace a front bearing for 50 bucks in parts than 150 bucks in parts per side. You're looking at 300 bucks for front bearing/hubs plus at least 400 for wheels. 700 minimum, wihtout including tires. You cna get Team Dynamics from SHOnut for that much.

 

[Ian Macoomb]

How about drilling the hubs that we already have?

I was thinking about doing that for my beater Sentra. I've got nearly brand new snow tires on a set of rims from a Suzuki Swift that I'd rather not have to pay to have them unmounted and remounted and balanced.

 

[NebraskaSHO]

How about drilling the hubs that we already have?

I was thinking about doing that for my beater Sentra. I've got nearly brand new snow tires on a set of rims from a Suzuki Swift that I'd rather not have to pay to have them unmounted and remounted and balanced.

I've thought about this as well, has anyone tried this before?

 

[rubydist]

I've asked machine shops to redrill hubs before and they have always declined. It turns out you need a pretty sophisticated machine to get all the holes exactly in the right location, which is required when you are spinning the wheel at highway (race?) speed. If the Freestar parts fit, that would be a much better solution, imho.

 

[stephen newberg]

I think the reason shops will decline to redrill hubs has more to do with liability issues than those of correct measurement.

pax, smn

 

[firebat45]

FWIW, people redrill Thunderbird hubs from 5x108 to 5x114.3 quite often. I just measured my Tbird rear hub and it's 139.15mm, +/- 0.25mm diameter. It's also about 10.4mm thick. As long as the Taurus hub is the same diameter, I'd say go for it with redrilling. Tbird guys run a lot more torque through their hubs than most SHOs.

I also don't see why it's such a big deal to drill them. I could probably do it myself, with a jig. I don't know why a shop would refuse to do it.

Okay, just did some more searching. This link is to a guy who presses out the old studs, degreases, bead blasts, redrills, and presses in new studs for $75. It's for the Tbird rear end hubs, but it would be the same procedure for the SHO hubs. Anyone interested might want to email him and see if he will do it.

 

[stephen newberg]

I don't know why a shop would refuse to do it.

As noted, most likely a shop would so refuse not because it is hard to do, but for potential liability reasons. Its a litigious world out there, and bad things do sometimes happen.

pax, smn

 

[SHOZ123]

With the wheels out there today with multiple hole patterns and almost all Volvo wheels I don't know why you would need to do this unless there were some particular Mustang wheels you wanted to use.

 

[Fahrzeug]

I don't think there are enough benefits to offset cost for this. You can find plenty of 5x108 wheels that look great. I'd rather be able to replace a front bearing for 50 bucks in parts than 150 bucks in parts per side. You're looking at 300 bucks for front bearing/hubs plus at least 400 for wheels. 700 minimum, wihtout including tires. You cna get Team Dynamics from SHOnut for that much.

I hear what you are saying. I know there are lots of decent wheels out there in 5x108, but I don't care for the limited selection. The fact that we can run most any newer ford wheel, along with almost any aftermarket wheel is worth it to try this out in my book. And the biggest reason that anyone would want to do this is to be unique. How many Tauruses are running around with MSR 190's and ghetto chrome 20's? (No offense to anyone that may have these wheels.) It's just not what I want on my car.

I have a offer in on a front hub from a Freestar, so we will see when it comes in and I test fit it. I may ask the seller if he has the rotor off the same van that he would include with it, just to make sure that you can also use the rotors off the freestar to make the swap even easier. I'm hoping it can work!

-Tim

 

[38SHO]

so is 5x114.3 the same as a mustang bolt pattern?

if so brakes would be taken care of with a 13" upgrade and you wouldn't have to redrill rotors anymore!

now I worked on one today, and I forget the year, and I didn't even notice what bolt pattern it had, but it did look bigger then my SHO......


freestars have impressive looking rear brakes, if you could convert that over to a SHO you would be all set


good news is the knuckles look VERY similar to a taurus in regards to strut,tie rod, and lower control arm mounting locations and styles.... one would need to figure out if they are the same size holes..... like does a gen1/2 strut fit into the knuckle, does the stock tie rod fit into the knuckle.... etc...

I also forgot to look how the balljoint is now that I think about it, if its a style with it on the control arm it would be compatible with the gen1/2 subframe, if not, then you would probably need the gen3 subframe

this looks promising...... wish I could try to mess around with it, but to someone with the time... it LOOKS possible with the right setup

also one more thing to research would be how many axle splines fit into the hub....

 

[Fahrzeug]

so is 5x114.3 the same as a mustang bolt pattern?

good news is the knuckles look VERY similar to a taurus in regards to strut,tie rod, and lower control arm mounting locations and styles.... one would need to figure out if they are the same size holes..... like does a gen1/2 strut fit into the knuckle, does the stock tie rod fit into the knuckle.... etc...

I also forgot to look how the balljoint is now that I think about it, if its a style with it on the control arm it would be compatible with the gen1/2 subframe, if not, then you would probably need the gen3 subframe

this looks promising...... wish I could try to mess around with it, but to someone with the time... it LOOKS possible with the right setup

also one more thing to research would be how many axle splines fit into the hub....

It's really interesting how much they didn't change the knuckles. The major difference that I noticed is that the Taurus knuckles are almost idenical, but the Freestar knuckles do not have the mounting brackets made in for the ABS sensors because they are integrated into the hubs.

As far as all this fitting on any Generation of Taurus, I would guess that it would be closer to fitting on a Gen 3/4 most likely. I know the struts bolt in exactly like a Taurus. I would guess you could bolt this in like you said if you were to use a Gen 3/4 subframe on a Gen 1/2 if that is even possible.

The only picture I saw of a Freestar knuckle was on Ebay and it had a tag over where the ball joint would be, so I would assume that it does have the same type of lower ball joint. The tie rods should be the same hopefully.

I did however get a cheap Freestar front hub to experiment with to see if it does fit in the taurus knuckle and work with the Taurus axle. As far as it having the ABS sensor integrated it should not matter because you can take it out and still have the ring on the axle.

The only problem I still can't figure out is what to do with the rears. I read someone else has done this, but there was not alot of detail. What I read was they used Probe GT rear hubs and sleeved the spindle and seperated the hub and pressed it into a taurus bearing from what I read. This was on a Gen 1 or 2 if I remember correctly.

The hubs might actually fit with no modifications on a Gen 3 or 4 if the spline size is the same. I doubt it is. I guess if I was to find a Probe hub cheap enough it would be worth a try, the Taurus and Probe hubs look pretty close in size. You could always get the hubs and rotors re-drilled to 5x114, but as I said it looks like a huge pain in the ass and not most shops wouldn't want to do that most likely.

It's going to be a trial and error project, and I hope to figure out what is needed to do this properly and safely. Or, someone may figure it all out before I do, either way it will be a neat swap and really cool to see Tauruses running different wheels.

-Tim

 

[38SHO]

I found this picture of a freestar knuckle

and I found another pic of a bunch of freestar parts on a pallet on ebay, and it looked like the lower control arms had the balljoints in them



so this would be something to try out on a gen1/gen2 subframe

the holes for the caliper brackets sure look spaced out to me, maybe thats normal though, would suck if you couldn't bolt up Cobra calipers to it, which I think would be the main benefit of a modification like this..... we could have SHO's with a lot different wheel options and looks

 

[SHO Continental]

What's with all this talk? Go do it already!

 

[Fahrzeug]

What's with all this talk? Go do it already!

Well, money is a bit tight right now but I should be getting my hub in soon to see if it will work in the Taurus knuckle without modification first.

Then, i'll see if I can find a used Freestar rotor to bolt right on to the hub with the same bracket and calipers. Then we all should know if the fronts will work with minor modifications with just hubs and rotors.

 

[GR8WYT]

Good Luck! Nice to see that folks are still willing to innovate. That's what keeps a hobby interesting.

 

[Fahrzeug]

Alright, the hub came in and I had a couple of free minutes and a free lift here at work yesterday.

I can say for sure that it does not work..

What I can say is the hub has exactly the same bolt pattern on the knuckle, and the axle slides right through with no problems. The issue is with the hub sliding into the knuckle to be flush, which it does not because it is too wide to fit.

I'm sure the complete knuckle could be swapped, but the problem lies with the ABS sensor mounting if your car is equipped. I don't think it would be a problem with a non-ABS car.

The other issue that I wouldnt know as of right now is the issue of the rotors, and caliper brackets.

The rears at this point is unknown until I get a probe hub to try out.

I guess I made some progress! :laugh_ti:

-Tim

 

[pjtoledo]

Alright, the hub came in and I had a couple of free minutes and a free lift here at work yesterday.

I can say for sure that it does not work..

What I can say is the hub has exactly the same bolt pattern on the knuckle, and the axle slides right through with no problems. The issue is with the hub sliding into the knuckle to be flush, which it does not because it is too wide to fit.

I'm sure the complete knuckle could be swapped, but the problem lies with the ABS sensor mounting if your car is equipped. I don't think it would be a problem with a non-ABS car.

The other issue that I wouldnt know as of right now is the issue of the rotors, and caliper brackets.

The rears at this point is unknown until I get a probe hub to try out.

I guess I made some progress! :laugh_ti:

-Tim

You're saying the spline is the same? The outer CV of a Taurus slides right into a Freestar hub? Can you look at the back side of the hub and see if the hub shaft/inner bearing are the same diameter as a Taurus? And of course the width. Measuring the overall width of the Freestar hub, from the back of the shaft to the outer face. It may be possible to press the Freestar hub into a Taurus bearing.

Thanks in advance


Perry

 

[SHOspazz92]

There was a SHO for sale at Carlisle that had a 5x114.3 hub on it. It had some Escape wheels on it I think. I asked him how he did it and all he said was "My stepbrother did it". I told him if he didnt sell the car at Carlisle (I assume he didnt) to post it on SHOforum. It was a VERY Clean 94 ATX for about 2 grand, Hopefully he post's it up soon.

-Sam