Just wondering if anyone had a car, specifically a 30/31 roadster where they welded a 32 front crossmember or droppe B
My approach: Work from the front backwards. Let the body sit where it wants to and move the rear crossmember back to position the rear axle correctly. You're probably going to hack the back of the ch***is off anyway to Z it so it's no big deal to lengthen it in the process. That's my $0.03...the Aussie to US exchange rate is a killer Pete
A 32 crossmember on the A frame will raise the nose of the car up about 1". Which is sorta the reverse of what 32 owners have been doing over the years by welding an A crossmember into a 32 frame. That's good for 1" of drop. When the front crossmember is moved forward 2"-3" on the Deuces it gives them a bit of a locomotive look. (I'm sure the A frame would give the same look if the crossmember was moved forward.) Ok if you like it, but some of the body's flowing lines are lost imho. Pete's approach - if you're using the A frame - strikes me as an excellent way to go. It won't hurt and would probably help the flow of the A body by having a couple extra inches up front. If you're running a Deuce frame, things are a little more difficult, but not too bad. The 30-31 body can only go back a little ways until the Deuce frame gets too wide for it at the firewall/cowl area. Use of a 30-31 body on a Deuce frame does not require pinching - or narrowing. 28-29 A's are a different story I understand and require a bit of a frame pinch in this area. Some guys like to pinch the frame on these until the Deuce frame matches the narrow A body lines up front. It's a nice look, but you're giving away some frame width that could be used for a V8, headers etc. Interesting part about my 31 on 32 rails roadster is the hood top measured along the center line came out at 32 3/8". The stock hood top on the 30-31's is 31 5/8" and the Deuce hood tops are 32". With the 30-31 body sitting where it is and the rear axle centered on the A's rear wheel well the wheelbase ended up at 105". Stock 32's are 106" wheelbase and the A's are a touch over 104". All in all the 30-31 body on the Deuce frame makes for a good looking, nicely proportioned car. The most important thing you can do here is to use a 32 radiator that's been chopped 2". That allows the Deuce grille shell to slide down in between the frame rails. 2" will have to be trimmed off the lower sides of the Deuce grille shell so it will clear. It makes for a nice look to have the Deuce grille shell hanging down lower in the front than it does on the 32. An illusion of lowness as it were. The Deuce grille shell does not have to be chopped, just the sides trimmed. The 28-29's are the ones that require the Deuce grille shell to be chopped 4" to have the hood line flow properly. As a small aside, I had a 32 radiator that was chopped 1" Everything I'd heard indicated this was the way to do it with the 30-31 body on the Deuce frame, but it doesn't get the grille shell down low enough to have a good hood line. The additional 1" makes all the difference in the world as far as the side view and 3/4 front view goes. Check the pics to get an idea of what a difference 1" makes. The illusion that the lower part of the grille shell is just that . . . an illusion. The grille shell is square to the firewall & frame.
I don't have a radiator in the 31 right now. The 32 has a four row Walker. The upper tank rear is 3/4" toward the back from the back edge of the grille shell lip. The core proper looks to sit about 1/4" forward of the rear of the upper tank. When I had a radiator in the 31 it was a three row and the rear of the core sat further forward than does the rear of the core in the 32. All of which means your mileage may vary. If you have a 32 grille shell you can do a little extrapolation and determine where the rear edge of the grille shell lip would be by noting the 32 3/8" hood length and going from there. The Model A front crossmember in the 31's, 32 frame is in the stock location for 32's. Which would allow a 32 body, hood, grille shell etc. to drop right onto the frame. The frame was built on a frame table and the engine/trans mounts built and engine/trans installed at the same time. Since the body already had a firewall setback it was placed on the frame with engine in place. The firewall was not the worry, if required I would have cut it back more. The potential problem was body fit on the 32 frame. The 31's 32 grille shell is set the maximum toward the front that the slotted crossmember radiator mount holes will allow. Perhaps this pic will help. The other pic shows how well the 31 body matches the 32 frame. The 31's hood sides (not shown) are in the correct location as far as transverse spacing goes. The wheelbase length was not planned. That's the way it came out after the frame was built, engine/trans in and body on where I wanted it to be. As mentioned, centered on the vertical bead on the rear wheel well.
Thanks for the info and ideas. I'm going to try and get it up and rolling in the next week. I appreciate the input.
Mine is a 30A on 32 rails- swept 4" frt and rear then tipped down 1" at each end resulting in a 3" drop and a 106" wheelbase......... Stock height W/S stantions -laid back....... The A style crossmember is in the stock location/spring in stock mount- stock A frt spring mounted to the radius rods/with axle ahead of crossmember 3" Im running a 32 Commercial shell as C9 states with the sides knotched 2"-but stock dimensions other than that..... Up front is a stock 48 Lincoln axle and brakes-a 348 Truck block and I did a wheelbarrow firewall ala '60's- so I can pull the distributor easily ...[32" hood/cowl to grille shell length] I like it -as it sits good and has no boring catalog clone **** anywhere in sight..... I believe if you do as you say its gonna look a little anteater from the side profile.........
I'm not understanding the swept 4" bit. Does that mean the straight part of the frame is now swoopy or curved? (The part behind the front kickup.) Good looking car. Got any pics of the steering arm/draglink/tie rod setup? Curious as to how much room the tie rod has with the axle forward. This doesn't really enter into this discussion, but I'll point it out anyway. Lokar, who builds nice looking 32's does a neat little trick to get a good hood line. Instead of going for the max drop at the front, he places the front crossmember low in the frame instead of high. That allows the stock radiator and grille shell to sit down a touch over an inch and makes for a better hood line on the 32's. Not that much is given away in the front end drop bit and there are other methods to get the front end down low. I wish I'd done the crossmember low in the frame trick with the 31. Especially since I had a new radiator with 1" chop - that I got at a killer discount and had to give up when I brought the grill shell down another inch. Incidentally the aluminum grille shell support you see in the pic above is designed so you can alter the grille shell height during the building process and prior to ordering a radiator. The fore and aft bit can be adjusted as well if additional holes are drilled into the lower part of the aluminum support device. The radiator should have the grille shell supports mounted stock height as compared to the radiator top tank. The side supports get chopped at the bottom. That way, the standard un-chopped grille shell fits the radiator where it's supposed to. An additional thing you want to do if you run spring over axle is to notch the frame 1". Easily done by getting a chunk of 1 x 2" x .120 rectangular tubing and cutting off one of the long sides which makes a very nicely rounded piece of channel. When you cut the frame cut the inside a touch more so as to match the front spring angle and you'll be bottoming out over a larger area than you would if the spring was hitting the corner of the frame or notch. A good suggestion from AV8 and one I incorporated into the 31. If you run a 32 frame be sure and "C" the frame in the back for additional suspension travel clearance. 3" travel makes a big difference over 2" travel. Been there, didn't do it and was sorry.
Long as I'm on a roll this morning, here's one a lot of folks don't know. You can use the good looking 32 windshield posts in place of the Model A posts. Not sure if this would work on the 28-29's, but it's almost a bolt-on with the 30-31's. First pic shows the 32 windshield post that bolts right onto the A stanchion. The bottom round piece and other pieces are the same size as the A. What you will find is that the w/s post leans too far forward so you'll have to grind the A stanchion to bring the w/s angle back to where you want it. Most times you'll break through the casting, but a small piece of 1/8" thick plate welded in and ground smooth will take care of that. The second pic shows the 32 post leaned forward and you can see the rear bottom edge of the stanchion ledge is ground down. (The stanchion ledge is symmetrical to start with.) Disregard the tempory top w/s bar. It's there just to get an idea of w/s height and in the pic it sits close to 1" high. The w/s frame is home-made utilizing 1 x 2" x .087 rectangular tubing. The lower part - not seen - was bent in a wrought iron roller bender to follow the dash/cowl shape. The rectangular tubing will give us a 32 style w/s instead of the typical Model A round w/s tubing. We have all the pieces cut out and all that remains to be done - besides the welding - is to mill the rect tubing for the windshield gl*** and tape. I thought this part of the project would be done long ago, but we lost over a year looking for a house in Arizona, packing, moving, unpacking and I'm just now getting back to working on the 31. Finishing the windshield frame is next on the list - right after I get the cotton-picking seat frame done. Been a bunch of backing and filling on that and I may still do it differently.
Thanks for the info. That looks great, nice spring mount. I know what you mean, I spend way more time too making some things that could've been bought and installed days ago instead of calling the 800 numbers.. What kind of axle is that ?
C9....the way I described it as "swept"means its a straight"bend" up-just ahead of the reveal on the frame side...cut vertically with with a taper of 1/2" to zero at bottom -allowing the frame to bend upwards[4"]. If you did ONLY that -you would end up with the frame horn slightly upwards in at***ude-Hence "Tip'd" meant I sliced it again- this time from the bottom UP at about the [centerline of the front crossmember]-tipping the horns back downwards to achieve the right look at front.[resulting in 3"] Roost,that front axle is a stock 47Lincoln unit-notice the droop in the middle?
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