This is a terrible pic of the rear suspension, so I apologize. I have a new phone, and all the pics of when I was putting the rear suspension together are on my old phone in a box somewhere. But you can kinda see what's happening. I have a Model A rear crossmember with roughly an 8" Z in the frame. The rear is a Ford 9", and the ladder bar brackets, spring hanger brackets, shock mounts, and shocks all came from SoCal. I made the ladder bars, and they mount to the transmission crossmember. I also made a panhard bar, but I need to redo it as it was way too short and would stick up through my pickup bed floor. I need all the space I can get, so I've been thinking about an alternative. Anyway, I know this pic doesn't help much, but if you have any questions, just ask. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Found the perfect piece of metal from my transmission crossmember build needed to remove excess metal from the frame The previous owner welded a plate there grounded the bejesus out of it this shit took forever Nice and flush outside inside you can see in this picture the previous owner did not have full penetration
for those of you into welding mechanics, on the main member I did a root pass, along with three hot passes, at 140Amps...I will be using this technique on all of the frame intersection areas...
Some fun stuff now!! test fitting boat tail so much fun!! this will be attached with bracing... will be chopping this up to fit the other half...
I just spent a few hours reading this entire thread and I am impressed. I was shaking my head at the rust in that body in the early posts so it didn't surprise me to see Plan A get dumped, but like the others I was not expecting the switch to speedster. As a doctor that sees what happens when plans go awry, you really need to step up on the safety gear though. Using that torch without goggles is a really bad plan. One good pop at the tip and you could have 2 eyes full of molten metal. If you thought this build has been slow up until now, doing it in braille will not speed it up. Ditto for the wife using the sander or grinder with no face mask. If that auto dim face shield is a shade 5 in the off position, use that for torch work and get a clear face shield for grinding. I hate the optics of those plastic shields too, but if you wear a good set of safety glasses under one, they will save your face from broken grinding discs. As for the lever shocks, it seems to me that someone is building new re-buildable hydraulic units as well, but I can't find the source at the moment. I'm sure somebody else on here has seen the ads in Street Rodder or Rod and Custom. Great work...a speedster and a 27 T are both on my bucket list as well.
Thank you for taking the time to look at my thread! I have all the safety gear in the world, the problem is trying to find it when I need it!! The welding mask is a great idea but optically challenging as you say... But it is easy to find so I will make a better effort! I have found the guy in Santa Ana so I'm covered there... I just needed to get them unfrozen so mission accomplished there... Thanks again for your interest and concern for our well being!
Man, -15deg here today in Ky[emoji12] little warmer in ye olde shoppe... driveline removed... will be removing some of this crossmember for better engine pulley clearance... top...
I think that tall rear cross-member is leading to a couple issues down the road. It's going to cut into the trunk area where most speedsters would be locating the gas tank and battery. #2 is that the shocks are ending up very close to being perpendicular and they are already quite long. You may have to add a panhard bar of some kind to prevent the rearend from wobbling sideways on the shackles.
Already got the trunk planned out... It'll be fine [emoji4] on the shocks vertical is where it's at... Panhard bar on the way... [emoji6]
A quick sketch of what I anticipate... Obviously, I change my mind a lot so it may be a dump truck by the time I'm done with it!
Little bit of progress today... front horn box plates cut to size transferred... clamped welded top... This was not fun to weld, lot of impurities in Henry's steel!
Some more progress with getting the engine mounted... cleaned up boxing rails chopped up stock for biscuit mounts... mocked up tacked using 2% lanthanated tungsten instead of thoriated... Hit and miss so far... was also hard to clean some of these areas well a little hot at the base... But felt impure... a little better tungsten was out 3/4" here to get into the corner!
Are you going to have to reach into the back seat to change gears? Serious. That shifter looks way too far back
I guess I'll just be sitting "a little further back" lol... I'll probably fab up a linkage of some sort... Or buy something like this...
Do some T5 research. You should be able to get a tailshaft for that t5 from an S-10. It will have the shifter up front. Here's a pic of mine (early eighties Camaro T5 with s-10 tailshaft, rebuilt with world class parts). In addition, the tailshaft has mech speedo gear (Newer ones have electrical).
Hello penna..., I've been following this build since the beginning. And like to make some observations. I'm glad to see you boxing the frame rails & now that you got it blown apart you have an opportunity to fix some angle problems on your suspension & frame set up. 1) It looks like your 3rd member is pointing up at too steep of an angle & all your brackets for the rear end are rotated farther back instead where they need to be to point the pinion yoke towards the front of the vehicle. The wheel cylinders for the brakes should be close to parrellel at the top of the backing plate. 2) Your engine appears to be sloping down ward. When you reinstall it put the intake manifold on the engine with a level on top & make sure the carburater base is level both side to side & back to front. Then you may also want to move the whole engine back some in the chassis. You want to make sure you can remove the harmonic balancer in the car to be able to work on the engine this may also change the location of your motor mount plates. 3) When you get done resituating the rear end make sure the front of the axle tube does not come in contact with the rear of the frame rail kick up when it bounces. Cars do funny things when under load. You've spent a lot of money on some pretty nice stuff, it will be more enjoyable car if you set up your suspension & frame up properly. Good Luck & thank you for the pictures & the project!
Few questions/clarifications 1) how high should the engine sit to comfortably reach the HB while the engine is in situ? I've mounted about as far back as possible and need to make provisions to move the shifter forward![emoji12] 2)how much bouncing do you expect from my rear end as it sits? I am going to add back 3 springs and have around 6-8" of travel the last time I checked... Will this suffice? Thank you for your time in looking at and commenting on my little monster! Will surely keep all of your points in mind!
The Jalopy Journal
