Here's a picture of my design for spring behind the axle. I used a stock 46 ford front end. I purchased 32' type spring hangers. I had a local machine shop mill thick walled bushings/tubes to hold the hangers. The tubes have the correct taper and everything mates well. I drilled both sides of the wish bones with a hole saw in the area of the factory weld where the cast end meets the tube. The spring mount was welded in place. The axle was centered with the frame. The spring was aligned with the perches and the radius rod brackets were welded to the frame in the cowl area. An 11/16's inch shaft was inserted through both bushings to ensure they were on the same axis. The bushings were welded on both sides of each wishbone. Everything bolted together. The perches have nylock nuts. My thinking is that the perches can move to relieve tension if ever in a bind. I may have to add a 1" longer main leaf to get a better shackle angle. With two men standing on the front frame with engine and trans installed there is no contact with the tyrod. I have not altered the stock steering arms. I will use sprintcar type steering off the left front wheel. I think this is a safe setup.
Excellent pic and explaination. What do you plan for steering? What size spring did you buy ? I'm guessing 29"
Eggzactly what I did this last weekend! Even drilled the holes for the bungs through the cast/tube junction like you did. Great minds think alike huh
That's a neat design you invented. I bet we'll start seeing it a lot on hot rods and those new fangled RAT RODS. Sam.
Mo-Junk, If you spin those hangars over it looks like you could lower the front another 1/2" or so. Any worries having the spring hangar more in compression than tesnion? TZ
Structurally I don't think it will make any difference whether the hanger is turned up or down. It does give you a way to adjust ride height if you're not satisfied after final welding. The battery, master cylinder and steering box will all be up in the cowl. The driveshaft tunnel should make for a good armrest. The intake is an aluminum offenhauser 2x4 with the oil fill tube in the front. I picked up 2 4brl to 2brl adapters at a swapmeet and have installed two rochester 2brl carbs. I needed a way to run multiple carbs without a real wild engine. I want to run cool for plenty of cruising. I think the two 2brls will actually provide pretty good performance. I plan to test it at the HAMB Drags next year. I plan to flat tow this roadster behind my 48 chev. pickup on the long trips. Sam
I like your manifold idea... show us a pic of it. I had a similar idea... so I just made my own. Sam.
good work, sam...and t-man...and sam... yeah, i'd like to see those 4 to 2 (or is it 2 to 4?) adapters myself.
Thats the same front end and setup im using,just wondering how much caster you are running, With the stock 46 bones attached below the frame at the cowl.. with mine mocked up at 6 degrees they want to attach at the top of the frame rail.
lowsquire, I have about 9° on the front axle. It has a little bit of that roadgrader look when the wheels are turned hard. I am looking at moving the attachment up into the frame. But, if I do that with the 46 wishbones they will run downhill to the front axle. I can't drop the frame anymore because I only have about 3 1/2" of oil pan clearance. I don't want to raise the engine as I would have to re-engineer the trans mount and it would take out the center body crossmember. I plan to install a shid plate on the oil pan and carry some jb weld.I have a pair of straight wishbones but don't want to start over right now. I plan to assemble the body on the frame now and then will probably go back to the frontend later on. I purchased tapered shock bushings from Speedway to use as weld in bungs for the tyrod ends. The bushings are correct for 5/8" tyrod ends but I chose to use the heavier 11/16". Thus, I had a machine shop open up the taper for the 11/16" ends.I'll get one of the computer guys to crop a chassis picture to get it less than 70000 bites and then I'll post it. Sam
Mo-Junk, Dont want to rain on your parade, but this is a safety issue. Do you not think the perches stick out a little too far from the bones? I'm a firm believer in this setup, but if it were me I'd try and get a longer spring and keep the length of the perches to a minimum. Bear in mind the bending stresses on the perches, they were'nt designed to be loaded like that. On a positive note, dont sweat the road grader look, it'll be ok on the road. If you really want to reduce the castor, you will have to v-notch the front of the radius rods and reweld. Mart.
Mart, the perches are inside thick walled sleves or bushings. The sleves are tapered inside and the perches mate securely in them as they did in the original wishbones. The sleves protrude about 1 1/2' out of the wishbone and are welded on both sides of the wishbone. It seems strong. I will keep a watchful eye on everything and may decide to add a gusset underneath each mount. I agree with you that the system could be improved with a longer spring and a shorter sleve. Sam
I hear ya Sam, The pics are a little overexposed in that area, makes it look a little more spindly than it is. Maybe the best thing to do would be to leave it as it is and work on other stuff, and keep your eyes open for a wider spring or maybe a 32-34 type axle which has the bosses closer together. If by the time you have to finish it nothing has turned up, and you're still happy to try it, just go for it. I'd tend to leave my options open as long as possible.
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