For checking kingpin caster, you can just stick a washer on the kingpin that’s tall enough to clear the pin. You got it figured out, but for next time if you don’t have the same stuff laying around…
I can't fault your decisions so far but the fender brace is just that, for the sheetmetal. I'd want the shock and it's constant jarring to load to the frame. I can picture the vibrations weakening the brace at the frame, the fender also where it attaches plus shaking all the time which will also affect headlight aim and life. I haven't built an A so defer to others on this who have. Seems like there's a reason shocks have separate mount points.
It’ll be plenty beefy by the time it’s said and done. But to your point of head light/ shock mounts take a closer look at 80% of fenderless hot rods and you’ll see they share a mount. Especially if they are a car that has a nerf or headlight bar between them. That being said I have talked to people who have theirs set up similar to this with no issues, and I’ll be sure to test whatever I do before it hits the street.
When we bagged my son's Stude wagon we rebuilt the A arms and put the bags where the coils were. The shocks originally went through the coils. The left shock ended up up coming off the steering box. I looked pretty solid but jiggled the steering column/wheel with every sizable bump. It made the first round trip college trip from Nevada to Texas but was changed the next summer.
Yeah I’ve destroyed about a half dozen upper shock mounts at least here in the land of 80mph cross town traffic and pot holes that could swallow a car lol. most of the time it’s either been a shock bottoming out and putting the whole force/weight of the car on the shock mounts or a design that flexes to much and find a place to work harden and brake lose. Those earlier irons are a good 1” thick solid steel. Every bit as beefy down low as your common f1 style mounts. Which ever iron I use it’s gonna be plenty strong and not capable of bottoming the shock out. This is all just mock ups. I think I’m going to vice grip the tab to the iron and set a camera on a tripod and bounce the car around. Seee where things want to move. That’ll send me down the right path I believe
Yeah, I've torn a few off from the shock bottoming out. I learned that lowered cars usually call for shorter shocks.
Or at least functioning bump stops lol I’ve got a good plan for the back, still formulating the front
The cast ones are really strong and of course you can gusset the stamped ones. I did use a old aftermarket cast F1 mounts modified to fit within the fenders, my rear shocks use the '36 radius rod and a modified early Corvette cast shock mount (haven't worked out getting them to look good to me). I'm going to have to revisit that setup when the full weight is on it (engine change and spring change after I made them). I'm trying to use as much cast parts as I can....I want to start the '28 again but I have a little more life things to do first. Sadly once I start something super focus sets in and nothing else matters. The one cast bracket you showed (the bottom of) is a '28 fender bracket. All cast parts go for good money around here and AR stuff even more which is a good way to fund projects if you don't use them.
@1oldtimer yeah hyper focus, and life getting in the way both sound familiar. If this doesn’t work out a friend offered some f1 mounts so I’ve got a good plan b or c? In place. got any photos of how you made your f1 fit?
Alright @Tim_with_a_T I owe ya one. I tried out the washer trick and turns out I had it right at 7deg this whole time. My measuring and etc was all correct. My bearing race had room for error and I found it! After un doing everything I did the other day and put us back to 7 deg. I compressed the shock an inch or so and vice gripped it to the fender brace more or less where it would land. made sure the headlight bar was tight and set my camera on the ground to catch some video. I pushed on the fender and frame horn. Then took a foot and stomped on the frame rail. went around the side and put the hood side up, stepped up onto the frame rail just behind the cross member and hopped all 225lbs of me up and down on the frame rail. went back and checked the video and other than showing that my planned c notch will in fact be needed to clear the spring in real life it showed no deflection of any kind and no bind on the spring and shock movements. granted I only had a shock on that one side but I feel like it was a good “test 1”. I’m going to make some keys for the lower shock mounts ( 1/8” by 1/8” square in case you’re curious) and install them so they don’t move around. Then I’ll mock up both sides with the shock 1 1/8” compressed and try it again. again, they’ll get some beef added but I feel good about the idea
Nice job. Learn from my mistake on the c-notch: suspension travels in an arc, NOT vertical. Place notch accordingly lol
I can’t believe how many cars are bottoming on the spring there even when parked when I started checking for it! Bet it rides like **** with the spring touching the frame rail the entire time lol
I don't want to screw up your thread with my stupid pics. You could easily heat and bend it up higher instead of cutting as I did. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-d-d-the-28-tudor.753531/page-2#post-10973254 Also mine I had to run the lower mounts on the wrong side (stud towards the radiator not the tire) because of my side steering setup. Any higher up the fender bracket and the shock would either be vertical or over center. Like I said, it might have to change after all the weight is on it (the 4 cyl is in the pic, but now it's a V8). https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-d-d-the-28-tudor.753531/page-2#post-10993024
Looks good! Thanks for the reference photos. I never think about how low the car is until I see shock photos like that. It looks like you’ve got the exact same shocks for your build and if I had my upper shock mount in that space I think the end of the shock would be touching the ground if not through it! I was toying with dropping it another inch but I think maybe I’ll be just fine as is lol
For ****s and grins I took a few photos. old timers set up ( I’ve seen quite a few mounted in this exact position I just used his because I was looking at them) my car with I believe the same shock in a similar angle etc. I think his shock is compressed about an inch or so in his photo. So about the amount of that necked down section. just another angle.
Alright a quick “bits n pieces” update. Been picking away this last week. Got the shock mount on the drivers side ready to tack, shim and see what works. Everything’s clean and ready I just needed some key stock to make keys for the lower mounts. The p***enger side won’t clear the spring hanger I left as a possible pan hard mount location so before that can happen I’ll have to pull the front end and lop it off. Trying to keep the amount of times I have to take the car apart and together to a minimum but I’m fast approaching the inevitability of having to take it apart and together a few times. so I switched gears while I waited for parts to arrive and started attending to steering. I need to change/ tweak my column mount so while I chew on that I swapped tie rods. Porkn****** had welded this 46’ one together for me years ago for mock up. I had a new one made and changed it out trying to keep it the same length as the other one was. I need to do an alignment/ toe check but I needed some jamb nuts which I hadn’t realized/ remembered didn’t come with the tie rods ends. Thankfully that evenings appointment snagged some for me. I dig that the reverse thread nuts have a little kerf in them. then i put together my pan hard bar parts and started mocking it up. I need to grab some slightly different hardware but so far it looks good. I do think I’m gonna have to shorten the bar by about an inch but I need a more stable mock up first. It’s hard to block up with the space between the axle and tie rod so narrow but I got some ideas. 1/8x1/8 keyway stock showed up! Gonna make a set for the lower shock mounts that are extra long so when they come apart for paint it will be easy to grab ahold of them and yank them out. but what I’m most excited about in the mail was this! the 8” has some ridiculous 2:70. Something gears and no way is that gonna work for me. 31.5” tall tire, a good over drive unit, and three pedals let’s have some fun! a couple of months of debating gear ratios I decided that a 4:11 is what I wanted. After keeping an eye on what they go for, I decided to check if prices were holding steady or climbing and I found one heck of a good deal on a set and had to jump on it. Using my favorite calculators it looks like this set up will put the RPM at 80mph within 400 of what my 46’ with shorter tires, no over drive and 3:00 gears runs at. Also after driving through Arkansas with some pretty long grades it crossed my mind that in overdrive it free wheels and I’d smoke my brakes going down that stretch of road. So I ran the numbers with out the overdrive and at 80 mph it’s still in the range that I’m fine running the car for a while. Not at an hour but for a chunk of road or cutting across town, sure. I believe the commander this engine and trans came out of came from the factory with a 4:55 or slightly deeper gear and a 28 ish tall tire. So I feel completely fine with the engine living in the range a 4:11/31.5” combo puts it in. I don’t like a car idling at highway speeds, I want to be right in that torque curve so if I need to hammer it down I’m right there ready to go. Also factor in that even though I live in the Midwest and have plenty of buddies who run for hours at 80-100mph I don’t even like driving 80 in my late model most the time. Most of the time this car will be in the 45-60 mph range with the occasional trip to a show a couple hours away at 70 ish. Anyhow, thinking this fall/winter I’ll pull the center section and have a buddy help me set the new gears up. summer has officially started so I’m not real sure what that means for garage time yet, but stay tuned
Lots of good progress. Keep it up. In normal use and wired correctly the overdrive will not freewheel a speeds of over about 28 mph. That can vary some with tire size & gear ratio. The reverse kick out is important and make life easier and safer for the unit. While it could freewheel in town at very low speed I have never noticed it. In fact 2nd OD is very nice around town. Here is the most/best Borg Warner OD information I know of in one spot. https://vintageautogarage.com/conte.../Overdrive History and Operation R-10-R11.pdf
Even better! I had it backwards about the mph freewheeling lol. Go figure! And I’ll give that link a look and see if there is anything I havnt saved yet
Once you are actually "in" overdrive, it does not free wheel. It only free wheels below OD cut in speed. Once it drops into OD, the sun gear locks to the case and you do have engine braking through the planetary gears.
A little bit of a tangent but it’s good info to share and save. This morning I found this post about installing a nos oil filter. As we’ve discussed this before I think this info would be additive to that into . He was missing the restriction at the head resulting in the engine bay getting a nice oil bath. The following focusing on his solution and some of the replies.
Studebaker had a voluntary oil filtering system like many cars of the era. There is an oil by p*** for the oil that doesn't want to be filtered. If that is clogged/blocked the filter system can't handle it all. The full filter came in '64 I think. (end of the line) There is a way to tap into the oil galley behind the flywheel and achieve full filtration. Also the drain back holes in to the valley from the head are small and somewhat restrictive. The drain from the valley back to the pan is small and dumps right on the distributer gear and can cause cavitation of the oil. So with these issues a long full throttle run can pump almost all of the oil into the valve covers. There are fixes.
Yeah I believe 64 is correct. Sounds like a quality oil pressure gauge is a good investment. maybe I’ll stick mine in front of the driver lol
Most of that oil stuff doesn't show up in a sanely operated daily driver. We did the full filter mod on my son's '54 wagon because he was young and it had a supercharged 289. The wagons & sedans are 4" shorter than the coupes and the Hawk got a bump in the hood for the supercharger. We shoehorned it in there.
The full flow spin on oil filter appeared in mid-1962 on both the V8 and 6 cyl. Prior to that an oil filter was an option starting with a cartridge filter system that changed to a spin on partial flow filter in the late 50's. The full flow system filter is located on the lower p***enger side of the V8 and the partial flow filters were both attached to the oil fill tube at the top of the engine.
Well this afternoon I tried out an idea for holding the pan hard bar in place to measure. I had tried magnets, zip ties, clamps and stacking stuff up and it just wasn’t working. with the space between the axle and the tie rod being so narrow felt like around 2x4 on end was the most ideal fixture. With the car so low I had to make something that I could swoop under the car and into place or ***emble in place. after figuring roughly a 4x4 and a 2x4 laid flat and a 2x4 on edge was the ideal height I went to work and made this. The bar lays between the two screws pretty easy. on 4x4’s now to see if it fits under/in the car. yup! Success! bar needs to be 1.75” shorter the best I can tell. I will also need to take some height off the frame side bracket but we will get to that next. Thinking 1 5/8” should get it in spec.
It was. It has been sitting in my yard for too many years. My son is raising a family and running his business. I want to help him build a shop so he can get it and his other projects in one spot. It is a cool car and fun to drive especially on road trips. I took this with snow on top because Jake was thinking of painting the top. But here is where it sits. Hope your A gets a lot of road time. These Studes have a lot of useable low end grunt. The supercharger perks up the top end.
Hey, Tim; Too late now, but if you coulda lived w/the panhard bar in front of the axle, I think if you've bent the old p***-side spring hanger inwards & up somewhere from ~20*->90*, the end would miss the shock action. Maybe I'm not seeing right from the pics. & on the Stude rpms, well, they're pretty good w/that, iffen the mill's in good shape, but given my druthers, I'd rather not run faster than needed. Gears n in/outta of OD makes life easy... . Also, don't know iffen I've mentioned it before, but you might want to check out a few things eventually, esp if the mills going to be seeing decent rpms. FWIW, due to a # of reasons(read: excuses), the Studes didn't always get the best maintenance(oil changes/filters/hi-quality oils/etc), so they can be at least partially sludged-up. On the v-8s; the drain-back p***ages from the rear-part of the heads through the block & into the pan are rather small diameter. At least run some heavy-duty wire thru those p***ageways to make sure they're clear. They can be drilled out a small bit at engine rebuild time, but even at that, the drain-backs won't be large, or fast... Also, the oil holes in the rocker shafts for the rocker arms are actually too big, factory made them smaller in later years, to help control the amount of oil going thru the rockers(& then not draining back very fast). The other valvetrain issue can easily be worn rocker arm bushings &/or shafts. These *need* to be properly tight, to help control the oil flow upstairs. &, of course, ring seal. The valley area doesn't have a very large oil-return area either, again partially fixable at rebuild-time. Too much blowby, at rpm, esp extended time, will pressurize the crankcase to the point of not allowing enough oil to drain back fast enough, much to the anguish of the lower ends' bearings. & then to your pocketbook... A couple of guys mentioned some things to look out for in previous posts. None of these things are deal-killers, just something to be aware of. & check out, verify all is good, have fun. . Marcus... Forgot to mention, when you get to the rockers n shaft, clean out the rocker tube, it'll be fulla ****. & a good place to have the shaft n rockers redone, is RAR: Rocker Arm Rebuilders(iirc).
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