As the title may suggest, I need to lower the rear end in a 1940 Ford. It's stock, stock radius rods, transverse leaf, and Columbia 2-speed. How does one go about doing this? I know it was done many times back in the day, but I can't find any easy to find sources on this.
My recollection is longer shackles were used, but I have no personal knowledge of their impact on the resulting ride. Conversion to parallel springs is possible, but on an open rear end. Reverse ends on the spring is a more common approach nowadays.
Reverse the main leaf, Pudding creek hot Rod shop just put out a you tube video on it. You can use longer shackles but anything more than about an inch longer you’ll need to add a panhard rod You can flatten the cross member but that’s a lot of work, reverse the main leaf and remove a couple leaves will get you down a couple inches
That's what I was going to say, reversed spring eye first. Then see how much clearance you have left.
Long shackles can cause some lateral sway, but has been done for decades. My preferred way is to reverse the main leaf, then remove some leaves and put them on the bottom of the pack under the main leaf. Might take some trial and error for ride height.
^ that. a lot of guys add a pan hard when going to longer shackles if they get too long and start swaying
My 41 is basically the same and I took about half the leafs out . Someone had previously installed one inch lower shackles.
Millworks sells a reversed eye main spring. I have one sitting in my garage I plan to use to lower my '40. I plan to use it and remove a couple additional leaves. If you go the same route be sure to make up a spacer to fill the void of however many leaves you remove.
Check out Iron Trap Garage on Youtube: The 1939 Mercury Gets Much Need Drops Shackles - Front & Rear!!!
Reverse the main leaf, then remove the 2 top short leaves & add them to the bottom of the pack. Doing this maintains the clamping force & lowers & softens the spring. Eaton Detroit Spring will sell you a reversed eye main leaf.
The vehicle in question. A sedan delivery, original V8, runs and drives great, zero rust. I also need a pair of 16” wheels to replace the 15”s someone put on the back.
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