Okay thanks again to everybody who's walking me through this. Today I pulled the engine out right before Frank (fab32) came over. We grabbed my unsplit 32 wishbone and installed it. This moved the K member back almost two inches but things look a lot closer to being correct now. One of the main points of confusion in the Bishop/Tardel book is Mike says a 33/34 wishbone is the perfect length at 47". Well 33/34 are something like 45 5/8" so I guess that's where the whole model A hybrid thing comes into play. 32 wishbones are 47" or so from the center of the ball to the perch pin hole. I don't know if the K member location measurement ***umes the builder is using a 33/34 wishbone or what but with the stock 32 bone in place things look to be lining up just right. Tomorrow Frank is bringing over a 32 V8 radiator and I still have to come up with a fan but I think were making progress. Anyways, here's how it looks now.
looks much better lucky! when you use the right combo of ford parts it's just amazing how they just seem to fall together.
Very interesting information. I've been involved with a kazillion hotrods, but had surprisingly little to do with flat head stuff. So. if I've got this correct, you let the front crossmember locate the spring, which locates the axle, which locates the wishbone and ball, which locates the rear crossmember, which locates the transmission, which locates the engine. Right???---Brian
Pretty much Brian. An unsplit 32 wishbone locates the K member where it should be in a model A ch***is. The engine/trans are then bolted to the K member which gives you the location for the front motor mounts. I'll get the 32 V8 radiator mounted up tomorrow and make sure everything looks good up front. Judging by the location of my roadster's body on the stock ch***is I put a stock model A firewall in the same spot on this new ch***is and it looks like I'll just have to nip a little off the bottom. As far as the rear axle, I will put it in the stock location and shorten the torque tube/driveshaft to fit.
I guess i would have just put it where it best fits the firewall/rad, and made wishbones that fit that where the k would be after that, but theres more than one way to skin a cat! looks good ill be doing my 30-31 roadster av8 style but i have a f1 trans crossmember to use. JEFF
Yes, in fact, the post that shows how to do this, and helped me immeasurably is an old one I saved to my computer, but found in the Tech Archive. Click here for the link, and thank SamIyam for posting it way back when. Paul/CA
Thanks Paul, Frank mentioned SamIyam's post but I wasn't familliar with it. That will come in handy for the rest of the project.
The Jalopy Journal
