I made a parts run to Wynantskill NY than to Glenville NY with a stop for lunch at Jumpin Jacks Drive In in Scotia, NY Stop one- Lunch! Dad is always shocked that it is not full of 55-57 Chevys with ball joint spacers and slap bars! Last stop!
Two things, firstly it sounds like Jumpin Jacks can’t get no satisfaction( hehe ) and secondly what’s your plan for the old racer?
That is one of the many projects of the man I got the second bunch of parts from, his plans to make it a race car again!
I think the 40 banjo rear maybe an old race piece. It came from an old oval track racers parts pile before the man I got it from had it, I have never seen shackles like this before
A better overview- It looks like someone forgot rule one of reserving wheels! I will fill the O.EM. valve stem hole and drill a new one!
39 to 41 (I believe) Ford 3/4 ton trucks commonly used in the early to the end of the drum break era (on lower cl***es) in oval track racing. I will be using it for my track roadster project.
Were these ever fitted to hotrods as a stronger alternative to the car banjos? I imagine the ratio would have been pretty steep though.
For oval track gears in the 5:00 or 6:00s are pretty common, I have an old Timken oval track rear with spool and a 6:1 gear set! I need to cut the disc brake nonsense off it! Stock cars generally used the Timken split foatler rear. The 10 spline Q.C. is based off this rear! In the early days they would use two left side bells on a Q.C. If you look at a "Modern Q.C. despite being aluminum they look like the old Timken side bells! Not mine Google find- Sometime in the 50s Safety Race Engineering came out with an aluminum hub/drum that worked on the early Ford brakes This is the set up I am running on my Model A The banjo rear can also be converted to foatlers using bolt on spindles and a spool that I believe was built by Frankland My set up The spool random google image find. And yes, drag racers did use them!
I suspected light truck but didn't know when. Did they have wider wheels too? & What rim dia? I've had a couple of those trucks but were bigger than 3/4 tonne, & had a different stud pattern
I have been slowly picking away at it! Sandblasted, then filled the stock valve stem hole drilled a new pilot hole, and primered the revered Mercury wheels! I gut the spring off the rear I am saving the shackles if for just a pattern Whar I was after! When it comes to hot rodding and vintage racing sometimes sacrifices must be made! And the old Model A axle!
Nice score, Robert. Lebanon didn’t let the limited cl*** go to quick change rears until 1976. It meant juggling tire sizes for at the track effective ratio changes. Need more rpm, smaller diameter, drop rpm, taller tires. Firestone had an F1 rain tire that was really short, and had a decent tread pattern. M&H had some pretty tall tires, hand groove but heavy. Ah, those were the days
Dad was very confused when he started going back to the races a few years ago, by the new "Limited Sportsman" He asked what is limited about them? I said talent! Than explained it is a rookie cl***! I think I remember when guys were grooving drag slicks! I was pretty young so I don't know if I remember or have just always heard about it and remember.
You know, I honestly don’t know if there was any difference between M&H drag tires and dirt tires, or for that matter their asphalt track tires, other than some grooves. And mid 70s wrinkle wall drag slicks were the rage. They allowed the car to have very short gears that were great off the corners, and grew on the straights, keeping rpms in check. But they were so, so fragile. Just brush it against anything and the sidewall was gone. We had one get cut one night and took a look at the sidewall construction. They only had one ply! Well, maybe one and a half! Goodyear came out with a new dirt tire in 77 or 78 that had better sidewalls but at the expense of little growth. I stuck with Hoosier gumballs mostly. They durometered 40 on the A scale. Gum rubber erasers were harder, but did they hook up with our little peashooter 350. The big block guys didn’t use them because they would rip chunks out of the tread. And they had decent sidewalls that could hold up to the occasional rubbing. And one little tiny Bridgestone rain tire on the left front. It was 10 inches wide and only about 25 inches in diameter. That’s how we got big negative camber on the right side and decent positive camber on the left side. Huge stagger difference. Now front axles have both caster and camber splits built in. Not that it matters much, it appears that a “New trend” is to three wheel the cars again! Ah, progress!
The Jalopy Journal
