I've recently found a '51 Chevy truck front end that's mostly complete- would this be too wide to fit under a 1963 Ford Falcon? The spring perch distance appears to be workable at about 27" outside to outside, but I think that the stock outside to outside hub distance is somewhere near 60" Has anyone ever used an early Chevy truck front axle under a '63 Falcon?
The 51 Chevy axle is steel, so you can narrow it, although you better be real good in your welding. The reason Econoline axle is used and a good choice is because it has the same bolt pattern 5 on 4.5 that most Ford cars use. I do not know the width comparison between them. The Chevy truck axle is 6-lug, although you can get car hubs and drums to make it 5-lug 5 on 4.75.
The axles are 57" drum face to drum face, which to me isn't all that bad- the Falcon fenders are approximately 60" outside at the sheetmetal. So with the right wheel offset using 14" wheels, they wouldn't be sticking out like a Maltese Falcon greasy haired stripper dating retard. Since they're all free and ****, I'm going to go pull them off tonight and hack the good stuff off and see what it looks like. All they said was don't molest the frames, so I'm jacking rivets. Are the Saginaw boxes worth a damn? Should I go ahead and reallocate one of those as well?
Another question- what's the best way to get steering? This seems like a good idea to at least get it into tierods- http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/draglink_adjustable.html But the stroke of the stock Chev truck box is vertical while the Falcon is horizontal. I'm not even going to bother to go check but I'm sure as anything that the pitman arms don't match up, and the Falcon arm is about half as long as the Chev arm is. I really don't want to chop up my steering column- it's about the only thing on this thing that's ***s. So I guess my question is- how do I get from the pitman arm on the stock steering box to that big*** ball chingaso on the steering arm?
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