I am looking at a 41 Ford Business coupe. Its got the stock drivetrain. Flatty runs great. One bad thing it does have is that totally stock 40's-50's 4x4 look. I think I'd get a nose bleed driving this thing. I wanted to drop the front down to an acceptable level and the rear also. It has a closed driveshaft with a torque tube and I was thinking that when lowering it, I would probably like to get a newer rear end in there also for a little better freeway driving. I dont know **** all about this drivetrain setup. School me. Thank you.
For the front, your quick best bet , is a dropped axel & a reverse eye front spring. I use a mono leaf up front on my 48 merc. For the rear, the quick way & keep the stock rear end, is longer shackles on the ends of the spring. Your ride will be a stiff choppy one tho for the rear. If you swap to an open drive line, then get a spring kit and use either an 8" or 9" ford unit with lowering blocks. Flat-o-Products makes a kit for your trans to go to an open driveline if you keep the stock trans. Happy lowering.
If you use longer shackles on the back you will need a sway bar, ford didn't have them till ,I think 42. Other wise you will have alot of body sway on corners.
I just got my `41 Business Coupe back on the road after a lowering job and frontend overhaul. My car is sitting about right now, nothing drastic just about 2 1/2" - 3" lower on stock wheels and tires. I used a Magnum 4" dropped axle with corresponding dropped steering arms. In the rear i've got a simple set of homemade longer shackle plates. Here are the bugs; In the front I have lost some turning radius to the right simply because the drag link from the pittman arm to right steering arm is a stock `41 piece and goes on top of the steering arm. I think the earlier drag link (`40 or earlier) is straighter so I can install it up through the bottom of the steering arm and eliminate this problem. I'm driving the car now and everything is fine it just cuts into the right turn radius a small amount which for now i can live with. The dropped steering arms I bought from Speedway Motors were forged and of good quality. The only trouble I had with them was some clearance issues around the spindles. No big deal, I just spent an afternoon clearancing them with a grinder. I took my time and just removed enough material to make them clear, nothing more. Moving to the back I made some beefy shackle plates that are about 4" long. I did it the cheap way and it predictably has caused a problem. An overly long shacle will cause the rear end to sway a bit. I did it this way for two reasons. First I spent a bunch of money on the front end and I wanted to slow down on the money spent. Second I have the original tracking bars and brackets that are found on `46- `48 Fords. These bars will keep the axles centered and eliminate the sway. My cost was low with this method because i have the parts on hand. The alternative is to get a reversed eye spring and maybe dearched as well. This is a couple hundred dollars but is a good way to get it done. Even without the tracking bars installed I drove this car from Tampa Fla to Dawsonville Georgia for the Moonshine fest a week ago. The car did great and really hugged the road with the rebuilt frontend and lowered ride height. It was so cool and I have to admit that yours truely was dreaming about what it musta been like to be a moonshine runner while I was booking around the twisty north Georgia roads. Had a blast! The sway was noticeable on the way home on the interstate at about 60 mph or higher. The big rigs would blow past and buffet me and that got the old girl sway'in. I knew going in that this would happen I just gotta get around to getting at least the rear bar on.
BTW getting rid of the closed driveline is a major ordeal. It requires mods to the trans, rear end and you'll need to modify the wishbone so it will locate the rear sans the torque tube. My `41 cruises great at about 60- 65 on the interstate with 3.78: gears and the stock tires and wheels. A good way to improve that might be to get some "highway" gears. You probably have 3.78:1 or steeper gears in the rearend. The 3.54:1 gears are widely available are not to bad to install and are'nt that expensive. This will cut a few hundred engine rpm off your cruise speed and will still give you good accelleration. You'll be surprised at how cool a road car you'll have with these mods, and you've still got an early Ford feel.
Thanks guys for all the great info.- Lakes-That Flat-O site seems to have some really *****in options. Thanks for that. Henry-Thank you so much for taking the time to get me all that info. Where you got it makes it look %1000 better. I'm going to check it out tomorrow night after more researching during the day so we'll see how it goes. Anyone else have any words of 1941 wisdom?
You kick up a 6 year old post. Is someone trying to sell you Phat Rat's car? or are you interested in his drop method? May want to do a intro also.
Henry Floored,.... I had same clearance issue with Magnum axel and Speedway steering arms... Going to Magnum's steering arms fixed the problem. I considered doing a grinder fix,...but hesitated to do that to steering parts. I'l keep the grinder fix in mind, in case I need to,...Thanks for that info. 4TTRUK
No Dave it's still in my garage, where it'll stay till I'm looking at gr*** roots from the bottom side. He posted the comment below on a picture in my album. I guess he thought I'd be watching a 6 yr old post as he never pm'd me. What color is the dash. If anyone knows please advise me.O.K. The owner will not respond . If you have the origional radio how did the antenna get placed.
I am interested in his lowering m,ethod and how much did he drop the car. It is a beauty. Would taking out a leaf form the spring help. the 41er
how about pulling a bunch of rear leafs out and reversed eye for the main leaf also... and the longer shackles and the 46 sway bar..??
The car in my Avatar picture,has Posie reversed eye springs front and back,plus one inch longer shackels in the rear. It has a nice early 50's tail down look. Any lower in the rear and the pipes will drag,on every drive way. I had to shorten my tail pipes,because they were dragging too often. You can change ring and pinion gears to 3.25 or 3.54,that will allow cruising at more reasonable RPM's.
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