Been heavily thinking about building a truckster from a late 60's or early70's ford pickup. I really want it with a straight axle and transverse leaf front. On some older fords they have a straight with parallel leafs. Anyone ever made one of these axles work with a transverse? If so how? Or are there any good arguements why not to. Just trying to plan this thing out as much as possible to use as much of the donor truck to keep costs low as possible. Thanks for any input or ideas.
my first thought would be the mixing of suspension geometry... personally, i don't think it'd drive well with the mixed types. given THAT; i've been playing with the concept of doing a rig out of a late fifties to mid sixties pickup with parallel at each end, setting the engine and trans back and relocating the steering box back further, then building a speedster type body on the frame. no longer a "truck" at all... but then i'm nuts anyway. it'd be a sort of 3/4 scale Blastolene Special....
I think it would be ok, the thing is you would just have to make your own spring mounts. Most of our stuff uses a specific axle (mostly superbell, original stuff, or possibly a magnum, all pretty similar), and most of the suspension parts are designed to mount/work with that specific axle. Its hot rodding, you can do whatever, just make sure you do it right. Another option is Posies quarter elliptic springs (I think its called ellipti-slide or something like that) check out george poteets new pickup-they used them on the front and the rear, very cool. They are pretty cheap to I think.
Flemke Front End. Most of the '60 and '70 Circle Track Mods had 'em circlehttp://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46449
Ahh yes, quarter eliptical could be way cool too. Biggest variable there would be my frame width. Of course I can make it any size I want, just looks and proportions... Good ideas... The rear WILL have a transverse or quarter eliptical along with the super short bobbed off box. Thinking of shortening the stuffing out of the stock box even for this. Mostly depends on the condition of the donor truck I end up with.
ah; i didn't get that you were redoing the design. i guess my thinking runs along symmetry, really; what's up front is like what's out back. i been daydreaming about Allards a lot, too.... but i'm leaning towards a beat F-1 to use as a base.
The west coast Super Modifieds of the 1970's used 1956 Ford pick up front axels that were narrowed and used the pre 1948 Ford cross springs. Simply made spring perch, round tubing with a 5/8 inch bolt welded to it. Flat plate welded to axel.
If you found a big enough piece of angle iron at least 3/8's thick that would cover the four mounting holes for the orginal spring u-bolts. You could bolt that down through the four holes with the vertical side facing in on both sides. Then just drill a hole in the vertical side to accept the suicide style spring perch that would normaly bolt into a bat wing. Of couse you would have to tie into the same angle iron to run your radius rods too.
AD Chevy I-beam, cross spring, simple mounts that put a eyelet above where the springs were. Not mine, but spotted at Billetproof Nor-Cal '08 and '09.
Here's a setup I did for an O/T rod project. Are you going to build the frame from scratch, or try to use the truck frame as a starting point? Also, I think you're going to have to way back into the early 60s to find a solid axle Ford. Didn't they go to twin I beam in about 65-66?
Starting from scratch. I figure that will be easier than polishing a turd. I mean making the factory one look clean and nice like I'd want it to. Kinda kicked around the idea of getting a prefabbed or at least kit t bucket frame and modding that. Yes swapped to twin I in 5or6. Looking at some mid 60 donor trucks and up to 70.
Ummm... I think cutting the ones off the donor axle in half makes them work, too. No need to over-complicate things.
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