In a nut shell. I am starting to build all new front suspension for my 40 limited. I want to get away from king pins and ad disc brakes. I am not asking the best route to accomplishment goal or a kit to install. I will be building my own upper and lower A-arms also. Can I take front steer spindles and swap sides and make them rear steer? I know the ackerman angle will be off a little due to wheel base of my car being huge 133". Also the caliper will be ahead of my spindle instead of behind. I was originally designing around 1965-1970 impala spindles which have a removable steering arm but I don't like how the ball joints mount. But I just found a donor chases from a 96 impala ss. Disk brakes front and rear with the same lug pattern and the rear end is only .2 inches wider in track width. 3.08 posi rear. Thanks Ken
I am sorry, but I don't know what a "40 limited" is. But as for your questions: Ok, fair enough. I would ***ume you know at least the basics of front suspension geometry if you are going to attack a project like this. And that you are an accomplished fabricator. So forgive me if some of your following questions seem a bit off. No. Unless you either fabricate new steering arms or use steering linkage that corrects for the mislocation of the tie rod ends. Similar to how GM does front steer, your Ackerman would be backwards regarless of how long the wheel base is. If you like the spindle geometry of those spindles, and have already designed a front suspension to your liking and then to swap to the later spindle as you later suggest (I ***ume, you are unclear) you are starting your suspension design all over again. Seems it would be simpler to just deal with the earlier ball joint. If you could, rethink and restate your question a bit more clear and well thought out and I might be able to help you with more than Ackerman questions.
I apologize for bein so confusing. The car is a 1940 buick limited. I am in the research/planning stages of completely rebuilding the from suspension on my car. My goal is 5 x 5 lug pattern. Disc brakes prefer 12" rotors if my rims will fit. With easy to find replacement parts running ball joints instead of king pins. rack and pinion lastly is building everything to bolt into the stock locations on the frame. I am goin to duplicate the lower A-arm but use ball joints. Make an upper A-arm mount that bolts in where the cantelevar(sp?) Shocks mount.adjust the mount height of the upper A-arm to correct for any height in spindle change. I had starting thinking about using the 65-70 impala spindles because they are rear steer but found it hard to find ones with disc brakes already and in the end have to do a drum to disc conversion. And then with those spindles the lower ball joint mounts from the top of the lower ball joint mount and not below. Another idea was A-body spindles with disc brakes bit then I have the redrill the rotors and have smaller discs.yet again harder to find and not have to convert. Nice thing with the A-body stuff is the steering arm bolts on and can be flipped from side to side to be set to rear steer. Then I find this 1996 impala ss ch***is. Right lug pattern,modern calipers,larger discs,find parts at any part store. But they are one piece spindles. I don't see why flipping them wouldn't work but I haven't got them in my hands to examine. Also for the same price it includes a posi 3.08 rear end that I can use when I convert to a t5 and tackle the rear suspension Sorry for the long post. Thank you for the help
Also I would be adjustin/modifying the tie rod and steering completely when installing the power rack and pinion
This is the part that ElPolacko was saying about the Ackerman. If you flip the spindles side for side, the steering arms would not point at the correct angle. Can't be fixed correctly with a cast spindle. If they are forged you may be able to bend the arms, but it might be hard to do. If you aren't sure of the Ackerman principle, do a search and learn. Then come back.
I have read a lot about ackerman angles. And to my understanding is if it a front steer u draw a line from spindle pivot point to steering arm pivot point forward the length of your wheel base in front of the car so flipping them to the rear steer would be the same but based on the wheel base of the donor vehicle compared to mine. I can be completely wrong and am here to learn
Ackerman is an imaginary line drawn through the pivot points (king pins, ball joints) to the center of the rear axle. Your steering arms need to fall on that line whether they are in front of the pivot points, or behind the pivot points. In front, they will be out side the ball joints, behind they will fall inside the ball joints. This is why you can't just turn them around.
Ok that is where I was confused. I thought on a front they would be inside the ballots not outside.. ok I understand
I hate to sound cynical, but it may be time to grab every book on suspension design and requirements that you can and start reading. There is a lot more to this stuff than just making it fit and look right. Another good thing that you can do is grab a larger cork board or bullitin board and a bunch of thumb tacks and make a full scale articulated cardboard mock up of your suspension ideas. Elpolacko and I did this about twenty years ago when we were trying to do very much as you want to and create a suspension for the front of my '48 Plymouth. I have never learned as much about how suspension works as when we did that exercise, and use most of it almost every day to this day. In the long run, the stock pickup points on the frame and the available common spindle choices gave us fits that could not be overcome. Please take this as constructive criticism.
best complete front end to use in your case would be the Series 2 XJ6 Jaguar , its got everything , power rack , disc brakes (chevy pattern) , low mounting height , the right width etc ....installs with a minimum of fuss might be worth your while to have a look at one , I've used them in all sorts of applications from a '36 Olds also a '39 Pontiac to all types of F series trucks cheers Steve in Oz
Am I correct in ***uming you have no experience in building or aligning automotive suspensions? Maybe you do, it just seems you are mistaking the basics about Ackerman. Older front suspensions like the Buick IFS in question used very long lower arms compared to the relatively short upper arms and usually ran near negative camber curves. The tires used were all hard carc***, bias ply tires and the geometry was less important than now but still had a significant amount of understeer. Later IFS systems, from the mid-50s on started showing more positive camber curves for less understeer and actually had some cornering performance. Throwing a set of balljoint spindles and fabricated arms using the same attachement points as your stock Buick is going to throw the whole mess (probably) in a direction you won't expect. The ball joint spindle most certainly will not have the same KPI or distance between the upper and lower ball joint related to the stock links be the same. I am sure it will drive straight down the road just fine. It's when you need it to perform in the corners or accident avoidance that it may let you down and in a very bad way. Just "adjusting" the upper control arm mount to compensate for the spindle height is not enough really. This is where you can really hurt yourself if you don't know what you are doing. There is so much more to converting a link and rod steering to a rack and pinion than just bolting on parts. There is some interesting debate on Ackerman these days. Eng-Tips usually has some smart people that can explain things comprehensibly. I usually don't worry too much about it, so long as it's positive Ackerman. If you think about it the difference between a short bed single cab pickup and a long bed crew cab pickup have a vast difference in wheel base but use the same front end without much ado. It really depends on what you intend to do with the vehicle. HOWEVER Taking a front steer spindle and flipping it around will certainly have some issues one of which is Ackerman. You also need to be sure there is no included caster in the spindle also. I believe the earlier spindle you are contemplating has none. I am uncertain of the later spindle. Straight up, simple Ackerman built into the steering arm alone and not the steering linkage and then flipped would give you negative Ackerman because your convergent point would be out in front of the car.
Thank you for the input everyone. I have done minor suspension building. Nothin this major. I do have the abilityand equipment to undertake the project. This is by far the oldest car I have owned and worked on and thing are still new to me. I like the idea of the cork board and will give it a shot. Yes I plan on using the stock lower a arm mount and I do understand the length difference between lower and upper. That is the reason I will ne building the upper A-arm mount to bolt into the stock knee action location and cac accomidate a longer upper arm to help lessen the extreme unequal lengths. Rack and pinion- I know there is a large difference andboltin one up isn't goin to happen. I know the throw is less. The inner tie rods aren't moving in an arc and cam throw things off and to get all my turning angle I will need shorter steering arms on the spindles to accommodate the sorted throw of the rack. I have thought about ackerman on trucks like u mention short bed single cab to crew cab long Ned all with the same spindle. I do understand the spindles I was conssidering won't work and will be back lookin at 65-70 impala spindles or at least spindles woth removable steering arms since I will need to make my owns arms to accommodate for the loss motion with the rack and can make them for and ackerman angle I want. Now that I am thinking about it I may just go with A-body spindles and build around those. But I think I need to step back think a little more and starting drawing everything up in solid works.
Find some 58 Pontiac upper and lower arms and convert over to ball joints and still use the Impala type spindle. I did this originally on my 55 Pontiac but went to a straight axle set up http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/wiki/1937-1957_Buick_Oldsmobile_Pontiac_suspension_upgrade
One problem I have and need to verify this is being am 80 series I have found reference to the lower A-arms being almost 2 inches longer then the smaller ch***is buick olds pontiacs.
Also in that article it shows an original arm retro fitted for a ball joint. Why not adapt your lower control arms for ball joints for whatever spindles you wish like an early Impala spindle and use a 58 Pontiac upper arm because of the similar angle or find a similar type arm and get rid of the upper arm/shock thats on there now? And in that link a cavaliar steering gear is mounted up also.
I want to keep all old parts original so one day if needed it can be returned. There was only 3800 of these cars and it being a family heirloom
I believe that this in mutually exclusive with what you are attempting to do. You are better off leaving it alone, or transplanting the suspension from another vehicle (or aftermarket). I am an engineer, and a certified welder, and I would not attempt to do this, especially when there are viable alternative solutions. Small mistakes can get you, or an innocent bystander (or both) killed, in a heartbeat.
Honest truth from Gimpyshotrods, I hear from potential customers quite often about the scarcity/rarity of their cars all the time such as you stated. The car is 71 years old and is worth exactly what in perfect unrestored or restored condition? I have to ask if they really think the value of that car is going to increase significantly in the next twenty or thirty years. 3800 units is not very rare or limited production in my estimation. Under 100 or under 10 or owned by Harley Earl himself, those I would consider rare but only certain cir***stances would make it desirable, if you catch my drift. In fact here is one that states it's even rarer at one of 417 ever produced, and it can barely muster a $40K price tag. Family heirloom I can understand. A situation where you need to return it to stock I don't. But the restoration of this vehicle is going to be a net loss to the total value for sure. You do this because you want to and nothing else. Case in point, I just kicked this sorry looser out the door a few weeks back. It was sold to a broker and had a window sticker of $38K on it. It supposedly had over $140K worth of "restoration" done to it, including a full rebuild of the flathead V8 engine, Vintage Air, late model Cadillac leather seats, and other street-roddy custom touches to an otherwise stone stocker. I did another $12K worth of custom built front end, LT1 and rear axle from a 96 from a 96 Fleetwood, Flaming river steering column and custom brackets to mount all the engine support gear under the hood. This car still needed plumbing of the power steering and Hydroboost I put on plus wiring and cooling system. Granted, paying a professional like myself to do this sort of work really adds up fast. In the end this guy ends up with a car he can feel safe and comfortable driving daily in modern traffic. What you really have to ask yourself is what do you really want out of this car. I don't think there is anyone here on the HAMB that would chastise you if you kept the drivetrain stock with some minor improvements or maybe an engine swap to a Nailhead or something. Truth is, these cars stopped and steered really well for an "old" car. And if you expect it to be an old car and drive it as such the reward is pretty high.
Resale is not a concern. Driving it is. I am doing this more to see if I can.if it doesn't work out I will have all the unmodified stuff to still use. I will get it running and driving on all the original equipment but once it is good I will drive it as my daily driver except to work. I commute on a train. Thank you everyone
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