Hot Rods Single shear coilover ghetto mount.

Hey kids.

This is my first post here. I've done a lot of mechanic-ing, but this is my first old school hot rod.

What we have is a 34 Ford. Fibergl*** cab, but steel front clip and fenders. It has some aftermarket ch***is, that I haven't identified yet. I inherited this car from my Father-In-Law. He had a list of stuff he was going to change about this car, but he didn't get to it before the big C got him.

Diving right in, I put the car up on jack stands tonight to bleed the brakes. While jacking the rear end up I got a good look at these pretty badly done coilover lower mounts. The p***enger side was wiggling all around as I was jacking the car. Really glad I saw it before we put any miles on it!

Surely I'm not the first to come across a poorly done single-shear mount like this. What should I bee looking at to get this fixed? My big issue is the fact that it looks like they booger welded a flat washer to the back of a stock bracket, then (the best part) used some copper pipe as a spacer! That's what it looks like anyway. I will pull it apart tomorrow and see for sure.

Would it be OK to grind the bracket flat, add a real spacer and new grade 8 hardware? Or should I build some other all new kind of mount? My big concern is the amount of stick-out the bolt has. That's a good amount of leverage.

Thanks for any help!

 

BTW, I'd like to take a moment to say that my FIL did not build this car! He bought it as a fixer-upper. His work is so much better than what I'm seeing here.

 

I'd...grind off, or at lest smooth, the shocks flat washer.
Build a "proper" spacer.
Build and weld on the "rest" of the bracket to form...as you say, a double shear bracket for the shock. There appears to be plenty of material on the existing main bracket to do this.

I'd also remove much of the panhard brackets welds, and redo them too. Do some proper welding. Especially on the support piece.

Mike

 

Welcome to the HAMB
Is the top coil over bolt on a wonky angle as it appears? Yep construct a double shear mount towards the front of the mount and triangulate a rear support right back to the shock eye. Shock bushes appear on the way out . Nylock should have 3 threads past the nut To be effective.
Some of the welding looks like if you don't think you can overhead weld then most likely you can’t.
I think you are on to it anyway by your thinking.

 

That is way too generous.

 

If it was mine, I'd pull the rear, cut every bracket off, grind, strip and blast it back to new. Then I'd make my own new brackets and mount/weld them correctly using appropriate hardware. Oh, and I'd ****can those clevises for a start.

 

Most coilover mounts on the axle end are single shear. Speedway and others sell different versions of either a weld on or bolt on bracket or post that would look better and give some flexibility in terms of different mounting heights.

 

I know you are presently addressing the rear and the coil-over situation, but I'm sure you are aware that a complete front to rear inspection of the previous work done on the car is advisable.

 

And what kind of heat was generated on those snots ,welds.

 

I’d plasma cut the **** off of the axle and start over it looks damn dangerous to me.

 

I agree, pull the rear and start from scratch. Those welds look like snot and I wouldn't trust any of them.

 

That’s not even an aftermarket coil over mount.

It’s a factory trailing arm mount that has been “adapted”

 

Properly designed single shear is OK, but those are not proper. Double shear is better, but single can be acceptable. I agree that reworking is a possibility, or consider the total redoing of it. Basic problem is that lower bracket is not intended for the given loads. The extra thickness of the washer is not addressing the root cause of the problem, but it is treating the symptoms. Those lower brackets seem to be for a lower control arm in the original rearend application.
Can't see details of the upper mount, due to exhaust pipe. But it should have some gusseting or other reinforcement for a solid mount, even if single shear. Not able to tell what it is mounted to either. Check how that bar or whatever type crossmember is mounted to the frame. Might be bad welds and lack of reinforcement as well.
Panhard bar welds look like bird **** instead of a good weld. Surprised if they even have marginal weld penetration.

 

Pull the rear, cut all that junk off and do it right. Its a mess and not road worthy. Especially when that "supposed" panhard brwaks off and your upside down in a ditch

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What's the problem with clevises ? They have been used on drag cars and hotrods for at least 50 years. I always use AN bolts with a full shoulder, never had one fail.

 

If the rear is this bad, what does the front end look like?? Please put this on a rack where you can look at everything! Also, have a knowledgeable friend with you look for anything that you might have missed!! Yes, you've got some serious "fixin" to do here, but when you're done , you will know that you & yours will be riding around safely & not cheating death at every little bump!!

 

It's an 8.8 but the guy that built the car left all the stock brackets on it and just metal-hot-glue-gun attached stuff to it. I would prefer to have the axle out and redo, well, everything.

On the to-do list is to lift the body and Por-15 the ch***is black. The body is an eggplant purple, but the ch***is is this horrible baby blue.

Looks like even more reason to pull the body off and just start from the bottom up. Ultimately I'd like to feel secure enough in this car to let my wife drive it whenever. It was her Dad's car after all.

Yeah. I ain't no welder either, but I wouldn't be happy with what's on this axle.

Exactly

Yes. Luckily most of this car was bolt together. The rear end is truly the worst part.

Yeah. What's wrong with Clevis mounts?

 

I haven't seen any glaring issues with the (straight axle) front end yet. However the steering column inside the car is terrible. I was going to replace the 90's LTD tilt column with something chrome and more period. Same with the LTD wheels, and bucket seats.

From what I can gather the guy bought a mid 90's panther car and used it as a donor for a few things. And none of them look right on the 34.

 

Here’s an example of a better way to adapt a stock 8.8 bracket to coil over.

This bracket bolts on using the stock lower control arm bolt holes and the stock shock mount hole that your coil over is currently bolted in to plus two new holes in the bracket.
This puts the shock mount in double shear.
It also relocates the lower control arm (which you don’t need) and provides a place to mount a pan hard bar.


Found pics online.

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man those welds are **** ,and dangerous theres a lot to be said for purchasing a rolling ch***is.

 

I'm liking this. Fixes two problems at once.

 

There is no problem with clevises. It's just that I prefer less friction in my moving parts. I told the OP what I'd do if it was my choice, and that's my choice. He's free to make his own choices.

 

There are no moving parts on the rear of his setup.

 

Looks like the fugarwe bird was perched on the panhard brackets.

 

Not wanting to get in a ruck here but I don't think I've ever seen a typical 32, 34 etc rod built l with a rear like that. All the typical suppliers have single shear fixings done in a way that works. My homegrown facsimile has 100k miles or more without a problem. Not saying there's anything wrong with that pictured, but not on a 34??

On the op's pics, do I detect a huge crack around the weld of the batwing
mount? Looked like it earlier on my pc, but not as noticeable on a tablet.

Chris






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Then the OP doesn't have to change it. As I said before, he's free to make whatever choice he wants. While the workmanship on that set up in the pic is first rate, I still wouldn't run it on anything I built. I prefer the no bind approach to suspensions, and that's my choice.

 

I agree most traditional hot rods shouldn’t have a 4 link coil over 8.8.

I was just trying to give the op an option to fix that mess and get back on the road.


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Why not 4 link? Just because it's not old school?

I was halfway considering ditching everything and starting over with a triangulated 4-link set up. This axle still has the upper control arm mounts in place. I could reuse those for the upper arms and do a simpler and beefier lower mount. Then I could get rid of the panhard altogether. If I did this I would build it with opposed threaded tube and heim joints.

It looks like I will have to re-engineer the upper and lower shock mounts anyway. Both are suspect.

This isn't going to be fast car. Just a cruiser with the occasional burnout.

 

There is nothing correct with that entire set up, even the lower Nyloc nut is wrong. You should have at lease one and one half thread showing. As I previously stated take the rear out and do it correctly!

 

Nothing wrong with a triangulated 4 link and coilovers, except that it’s not old school, which is the point of this site.
I’ll pm you some more details about the 4 link in the pictures I posted.


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