Is it feasible to keep an intact rear wishbone with an open drive conversion? I like the idea of better articulation along with less cutting. There's a possibility I may use a flathead sourced trans adapted to sbc. Even if I don't I'm pretty sure I can replicate the correct ball socket.
No it’s not feasible. The rear wishbone isn’t a wishbone it’s two radius rods that bolt to the torque tube which you would not have with an open drive. If your keeping a torque tube three speed with a 35 banjo in a 32 ford I see no reason you couldn’t shorten the torque tube and driveshaft and then move the tabs to bolt the radius rods on and have it work just fine but that’s not exactly “less cutting” your middle ground may be to find a model A or similar front wishbone yoke with the ball mount and weld it to the ends of your radius rods making it a wishbone. lots of guys have had success with that. I’ve even seen them with a Johnny joint replacing the ball and socket mounting.
Here’s a link to Nathan’s build thread to hopefully the page he shows what he did https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...coupe-y-block-build-father-son.1004188/page-2
I will be splitting the front bones regardless. So mebbe use what I cut off the front bones on the rear?
This car has been running with the vintage stock car club I race with for 5 plus year and has been raced for 20 years or more. It has about a 400 H.P. Small Block Chevy, runs super soft super sticky 12"-13" wide tires. In fact many if not most early buggy spring stock cars ran open drive shaft floater rears or 10 spline floater Q.C.s and split bones.
@Robert J. Palmer I was taking his initial post as keeping the wishbones triangulated and in more or less stock form - seeing his photos he doesn’t have a torque tube or driveshaft on his rear axle at the moment so possibly he wasn’t aware of how it all fits together - so I wasn’t thinking about them being run as a compromised ladder bar or sort of a truck arm which has obviously been done to varying degrees of success
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