Technical 40 ford, how low can I go with banjo rear end?

I have searched and read just about every thread google can come up with but figure I need to ask as my specific info is not out there. I am looking to lower the car. The front I seem to have worked out (probably buying a posies kit). For the rear, I am confused as to how low (and as to HOW to get low) I can go while still using the banjo rear end with a driveshaft conversion. Help? Thank you!

I'd rather not put in a new floating leaf spring axle but will consider it IF there is a rear end that fits well (same width left to right and center differential). Does this exist? I am not afraid of some fab work but don't want to modify axles and such.

 

you can get the banjo as low as you want pretty much by using dropped rear spring and long rear shackles to drop it even more, but the long shackles really affect handling., but the big deal you will have is if you are making it an open drive, you will need to re-engineer the rear suspension as the torque tube locates the entire rear suspension. You could modify the original rear wishbones into ladder bars, and use them but don't use just the rear wishbones with out beefing them up, they will break.

I removed the banjo from my 39, and installed an early bronco 9 inch, they are 58 inches wide, and i hung it with a set of ladder bars from R jays speed shop. I have detailed pics and process in my build thread below. I used the same rear spring i had on the banjo and spring hanger brackets on the rear that moved the shackle location up another inch for a little more drop. Here are some pictures of how mine sits it it was only about 1.5 inches higher with the banjo, that was entirely because of tire height and spring hanger differences on the rears.

 

The cheapest and easiest way is dropped rear spring shackles. They come in several lengths.
Then remove a couple leafs and dearch the rest.
Presume that you talking about that 40 Standard coupe in your avatar (not the van) I
Are you leaving it stock torque tube?

Late model swap to parallel leafs is bolt in but requires a lot more info, choices, parts and $$
This will help in your search. Also search HAMB for 40 rear swaps. There’s a ton of info.
My coupe has a Maverick, my pickup has a Bronco. Both on Chassis Engineering parts
There are several other quality suppliers.

 

My 47 was lowered with a couple of leaves removed and long home made shackles. Had kind of funky tube shock mounts too. I changed to parallel leave springs with a TCI kit and lowered it with 3 in. blocks keeping the torque tube banjo rear. It sits about the same but the handling and ride is very much improved. The front has a dropped axle and reverse eye spring.

 

Can I keep the torque tube if I drop it about 4-6” or do I need to conver to open style with the speedway conversion (but keeping banjo rear end)? Does the crossmember that the torque tube sits on have to be cut so it can drop down?

 

Why convert to open drive? Cause someone said it was cool?

The torque tube design is perfect. No need to change unless you are using a late model transmission. And if you are doing that, I’d recommend using a modern 9” rearend.

 

The torque tube and an open driveshaft occupy the same space. You’re not going to gain any clearance changing it.

as already mentioned you can get that car 4-6 lower with a spring and shackle change. If you wanted to put in more effort and lose some trunk space you could flatten the rear cross member and damn near put it on the ground

 

No! I'd rather not convert to open drive. I actually asked because someone told me I HAD to convert to open drive if I lower more than about 2" which I plan to do.

 

Should be able to do this

 

Anthony that looks sweet. Any specs? Pm me if you'd rather not share? Tire size? Suspension? Frame mods etc?

 

The pic is from kustomrama
https://kustomrama.com/wiki/1940_Ford
lots of rides to pick from. Often the specs are mentioned.
The one I posted didn’t specify much but the common lowering methods for 36-40 should get you there
https://kustomrama.com/wiki/Mike_McAuliffe's_1940_Ford

 

Local guy used parallel leafs with the banjo rear in his 39, sets pretty low. Don’t know who makes the setup but it was a “kit” type deal.

 

I can't think of any good reason to keep a banjo rear if you need to switch to parallel springs. Doing it for looks and tradition? Don't the parallel springs spoil that? A banjo rear is too expensive to rebuild if you aren't going to do the whole traditional scenario.

Whoever says you need to use an open driveshaft on a banjo rear just because you lower the thing is wrong. Maybe a guy ought to use some kind of seal at the rear of the torquetube, but removing the torquetube is dumb and costly. The torquetube rearend has perfect geometry, no bind at any height, and is stronger than any ladder bars unless you are building some hundred pounders.

If you want a low in the rear 40 you can flatten out the rear spring and get rather low. If you want extreme you're might want to flatten the rear crossmember a couple inches. These will probably require a C notch over the axle. If you want to "lay frame" you could Z the rear of the frame, but not needed for a normal car.

 

Here’s my old 40 sedan I built. It had a banjo and torque tube. It was pretty low in the rear, but the huge 750s gave it some rake. The spring was a posies reverse eye with a few leaves removed. Stock shackles, no long ones needed. Frame was not C’d and it didn’t bottom out, but I only carried kids back there not any weight really. I used a drake sway bar kit for the rear and the car rode and drove as about as good as an early Ford can.

I agree with what’s been said, either stick with the entire banjo and torque tube or do parallel leaves with a 8.8 or 9” or?

 

thank you! That is good info! I really would rather keep the banjo and torque tube and honestly got a little discouraged when told I’d have to make changes to it so I’m back to being excited. Haha. I have no need to go to parallel leaf springs.

Dan, good info! Any idea on front tire size in that photo?

 

The tires on that car were 500/525 16’s on the front, and 750 16s on the rear.

if I had to do it again I’d go with 550 16s on the front. Two reasons: I think the slightly bigger tire would fill the wheel opening better, and the 500/525s have such a narrow contact patch the the front brakes would lock up really easily, and they were sketchy on wet pavement. I would be interested to see how much better the 550s would perform since they have a wider contact patch.

I looked it up, 550s have a 4.25” tread width, 500/525s have 3.75” tread width. That’s a full inch more grip in total over both fronts. That’s gotta help.

 

Also, I used a 4” narrower axle on the front of that car to get the tires tucked in so it would sit low. That involves a narrower spring, splitting the wishbones and then heating/bending the spring perches on the wishbones back to parallel. I have a build thread on that car. Search for “the Varmit” and you’ll find it.

 

Hold tight to your choice and decision there. Parallel springs bring their own issues to deal with.

 

For reference, I didn’t build this car, but it was mechanically identical to the patina 40 I built and posted above. SBC mated to the original 39 trans and banjo rear ended. All stock except lowering spring and tube shocks in the rear. The front had a Nostalgia SIDS dropped axle, Posies spring, Lincoln brakes, and Pete&Jakes Sway bar. I wanted to lower it more but I would have had to buy smaller tires and the tires on it were near new. Sold it in October to another Hamber locally.

 

I’ve wondered how common modifying or flattening the rear x-member was. Seen a few done here.

as far as the torque tube. If not using a lot of HP and or happy with the stock trans, a torque tube seems like an easy set up to lower. These chassis look like a very straight forward setup to lower.
I’ve been curious about these chassis hoping to build one eventually.

 

There is a lot of room above the rear crossmember to the floor so flattening the crossmember is an option if you want a taildragger, but a bolt in spring will get it plenty low so it’s not with the extra work on a hot rod. Plus, stock springs are really stiff so you pick up ride quality with a lowering spring usually.

 

The only reason I went to parallel springs was because the original lowered set up was kind of hacked up. No sway bar, bad shock set up with shocks blown out, ect. By using the kit from TCI I solved all of my problems at one time and got new shocks and proper mounts too.

 

I sell a reverse eye main leaf with a slight de-arch as well as longer shackles. Both available on the Millwork's website. You can get a good drop with a few leaves removed.

https://www.millworkshotrod.com/col...ts/early-ford-reverse-eye-main-leaf-1935-1940

 

How low can you go with a banjo rear end?

The lowest I've seen is 4.44 to 1.

 

The previous owner of my pickup thought that this was a good idea!
DO NOT, DO NOT try this.
Look past the rear late model Ford p/u frame clip and springs.
Look past the absence of shackles.
Rather......
Look AT the still in use torque tube.
Look AT the different pivot points of the front spring eyes versus the front of the torque tube versus the solid butt welded wishbones.
Not at all how a triangulated torque tube rear end is supposed to work.

He definitely DID NOT know about the HAMB.


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Short of doing a limited use taildragger show car there is such a thing as too low on these. I must be a dick for reals. I ended up RAISING mine. It had long shackles and reverse eye spring. It also had less than 2 fingers clearance from the axle tube to the bump stops. I live in Michigan. Our roads really suck in some places. I put stock shackles back on front and rear. I know I hit the stance just right AND I have bump stop room. These cars lose a little sexy when they're too low. This is purely my opinion but I think they need some space between the running boards and the road and when they're too low the roof looks too high. To me, to my eye. I apologize in advance for all those who might now say "...fuck I never noticed that before but..."

 

Tail draggers need to drag

 

In order for this to work it needs Shackles on both ends of the leaf springs. It actually was done in production on different brands. That lowering block is my #2 bark about all bolt on leaf spring "KITS" for the early Fords. Piss poor engineering Period.

 

If you want to do leaf springs on early Fords do this and scrap the Kit Brackets. Then you don't need lowering blocks to get a nice stance.

 

I originally pancacked my rear crossmember, dropped it a treat, but the floor needed clearancing. I made a jig to cut it uop and keep it all square, I have heard of other people pancaking the cross member in the car.
I wentwith the crossmember to keep the stock spring and shackles. Long shackles allow the body to move side to side over the axle, so a panhard is a good idea. The rear crossmember was the only mod I did to get to sit like this, stock spring and shackles.
Frtpont was a posie 'in da weeds' kit woth a superbell axle and split bones. You dont need to split the bones if you use a 36 wishbone, but theres loads of info on here