AV8 torque tube to short

Before I fit the K memebr to my A ch***is I bolted up the mill and 39 gearbox to the stock A torque tube to take measurements. In order to get my k member where it had to accomodate an uncut 34 wishbone I had to pull the diff / torque tube ahead 3/4'' with a come a long.

 

I decided to fit the k member, engine, gearbox and wishbone first and worry about the drivline later.

 

Obviously I still have a 3/4'' gap where the torque tube should bolt up to the gearbox (yes I had the inside universal bell/cover in place).

 

Last night I unbolted the torque tube from the diff housing, slid the tube forward and bolted it up so as I could measure the gap at the back and maybe lengthen the torque tube accordingly 3/4''. I was thinking I'd cut two torque tubes right between the bell and speedo cable housing with a tubing cutter ,the second piece being 3/4 longer and weld it back together, this way I won't have to adjust the lug that attaches the radius rods. Will this work and what do I do about lengthening the driveline. Can I make a new one out of two or should I shorten a longer driveline to fit my A torque tube?

 

This is the length I need to make up for...

 

move the engine/trans/kmember back 3/4in.

cut the wishbone mount off the k member and move it forward 3/4 in...

easier than ****ing with the driveshaft/torque tube.

 

this is probably not the best way to go but it would work i think...what if you make a 3/4 inch spacer to go between the torque tube and the center of the rear...then take the rivets out of the coupler on the rear drill 2 new holes 90 degrres different ont he coupler that are 1/4 apart each and put bolts in (in reality youd be pulling each peice out 1/4 inch)...then put it back together and the driveshaft will go in 1/4" less also...the reason i say to do it like that is to have as little taken away at each point rather then all at once..just a thought...good luck figuring it out...hopefully this makes sence atleast

zach

 

honestly i'd ****-can that rear and go for a 40 rear as the earlier probely aint gonna last too long behind a v8...my opinion ...for what its worth.....

 

I aint no Ford guy so this may sound stupid but,

haven't I seen rear springs with an offset to them?

where the leaves are not straight,

the eyes are forward of the mount..

Paul

 

I agree with 32, that unsupported pinion rear is not the strongest. Maybe you should go with a later rear and shorten to fit. Then weld a couple spring mounts on top.


alchemy

 

another dumb suggestion/question;

(can you) move the rear crossmember forward the 3/4"?

Paul

 

A few weeks ago on the Ford Barn flathead column someone said that a '32 wishbone put a '32 crossmember in the right place to fit a stock Model A torque tube. I don't know myself. If you need a measurement on a '32 bone, drop me a line and tell me what to measure. Bruce

Oh, on the rear end: Many early race cars, even dragsters, ran Model A rears well into the fifties. I don't know when the V8 Halibrand came out, but a lot of the quickchange cars you see in the early mags are running A R&P Halibrands. I was just reading a 1954 or so article on building a swing rear axle (death wish 1954??!?) for a very fast lakester, and this thing, although it used some late model 1953 or so parts in the axles, was Model A based. There's no question that a few A rears have been well past 200MPH and that a few have run into the 10's or even 9's at the drags. A good one should work fine on the street, although I would want good tight bearings on the pinion to prevent gear climb. Also, there ain't no connector on these things--the pinion is hollow, and presses on to the end of a tapered driveshaft!

 

[ QUOTE ]
A few weeks ago on the Ford Barn flathead column someone said that a '32 wishbone put a '32 crossmember in the right place to fit a stock Model A torque tube. I don't know myself. If you need a measurement on a '32 bone, drop me a line and tell me what to measure. Bruce

Oh, on the rear end: Many early race cars, even dragsters, ran Model A rears well into the fifties. I don't know when the V8 Halibrand came out, but a lot of the quickchange cars you see in the early mags are running A R&P Halibrands. I was just reading a 1954 or so article on building a swing rear axle (death wish 1954??!?) for a very fast lakester, and this thing, although it used some late model 1953 or so parts in the axles, was Model A based. There's no question that a few A rears have been well past 200MPH and that a few have run into the 10's or even 9's at the drags. A good one should work fine on the street, although I would want good tight bearings on the pinion to prevent gear climb. Also, there ain't no connector on these things--the pinion is hollow, and presses on to the end of a tapered driveshaft!

[/ QUOTE ]

i know your the guru and everything but i still have to disagree......have you ever ran this set up in a car??? i seriously doubt they were going 9 sec at the drags, if they did.. not too many times, the lakes is differnt those cars get pushed up to 60mph or better and are very light...plus there race cars they break put it on the trailer , this breaks and your stranded in b.f.e.
4 bangers break those rears whats that tell us???ive seen a bunch of later rears get shelled from small abuse those are fragile also..

if your going through all that work in building what looks to be a pretty nice car the last thing you want is to worry about that rear when ever you go 100 miles from home - BANG- and your stranded, enough things can go wrong you dont anticipate , but puttin that A rear in there might just be askin for headaches

oh and a 32 bone is about 2-3 inches longer not gonna solve the 3/4" problem anyway

 

i have not run one , but im not the one saying go ahead use it no worrys ....,its a poor design, ive seen a handful of cracked banjos cause the pinion wants to walk up the gear..

in 32 their were 2 rears offered 4cyl (like model A) and v-8 (with pinion support) shortly after that all cars had the support... you think maybe they knew somthing???

we can recite part numbers from the ford books till the cows come home...... , but that still can not compete with talking with those who have been there and done it... in the shop i work at i have to deal with this old stuff all day , i see lots of broke stuff my boss has been messing with this **** since the early 60s and his mentor had owned a speedshop from the 1940s to the 1970s when they tell me not to use it... i listen

why bother using something thats marginal at best when you can have confidence your car will make it home without breaking??......when in doubt i over build...when someone says to use something wimpy it will be fine... i say prove it... prove you have something that has went ****** amount of miles problem free .....

i cant stand doing things twice ... wide glide has entered a problem he has to lenghten his torque tube and probely a drive shaft, so im trying to help ... maybe eliminate a future problem so he wont have to spend the bux and do it all over again

are the guys telling him to use a wimpy rear gonna be there to pay for the new one when this one breaks??? are they gonna be there helping put it in??? what are they gonna say when it breaks ?? oops guess it didnt work after all... sorry to hear about that...

 

Let's look at it another way guys. $$$ and sense.

It will be easier and cheaper to shorten a 40 torquetube and driveshaft, and then weld on spring mounts, than it will be to lengthen the A torquetube and still have to mess with the abomination of the A driveshaft.

40 rearends aren't that hard to find.

But, if he HAS to have an A rearend, I'd recommend using a 32 4-cylinder driveshaft and shorten it rather than lengthening an A.


alchemy

 

Glide,
If it were me, I'd look for a 40 rear end, and use a combination of model A/40 torque tube and use the tubular part of the model A driveshaft adapted to the rear coupling from the 40 rear. I believe you can get bolt on A style spring perches for the axle.
I did a similar job on Old Rusty when I shelled the 32 4 cyl rear axle (it was pretty knackered before apparrently)
There are some pictures on my site.
With muchos respect to Tommy, but those parts that were run hard and fast in the 50's are all 50 years older now. I'd look for a later axle right up front, especially if I had to modify the early axle to work.
mart.

 

ok so since nobody seems to consider my uneducated speculation

it won't hurt to say one more stupid thing.

is the rear spring truely square?

with eyes and mount in perfect alignment?

if the eyes are 3/8" offset to the front and you have it in backwards the rearend could be 3/4" too far back.

no need to respond. again.

 

I have a 40 rear I want to use on my coupe,just how strong is the 40ish rears????

 

I do have a nice complete 39 diff, BUT I don't see any harm in running the stock A diff as I drive like an old woman, it is re sealed, painted, brakes are done, it's under the car and lastly I want to use as many A parts as possible. I just want to get this thing on the road... Thanks for the advice and i will check everything for square, then I'll look into moving the K member back 3/4 if it doesn't move the mill to far into my firewall then lastly I'll go ahead and modify the torque tube if need be...

 

This is cool info!

Thanks guys!

Sam.

 

I Guess a spacer,and a modified,longer rear coupler would do it. Its not a big deal,if its only 3\4..?

 

I think maybe the big issue here is finding ground zero for the ch***is--decide if the X member is going to be placed to fit the front end or rear end and bite whatever bullets at the other end only.
A springs and '35 up springs are square, '32-4 have the forward jog--not applicable here, and jacking the rear axle around isn't an option if this is getting a stock body. It would likely be easy to find a way to get a slight offset at the shackles if location weren't important, as in a modified.
A rears MUST have good bearings to survive hard use to prevent gears from climbing at high loads. This is true in modern rears heading for abuse too--few rears except flatheads, 9" Ford, and trucks have the straddle mount. The A rear was very heavily used in Halibrand form by many dragsters in the fifties, not as a matter of preference but because most quickchanges were A based until the later V8 QC took over. I believe the Chrisman dragster, a former sprint car and I think the car that broke through Roger Huntington's mythical 9.4--140 something MPH barrier, had an A QC. The old 8" gears weren't all that weak, and racers learned to bluprint the hub attachment or even went on to spools and special axles from Halibrand.
Early Ford running gear faded out slowly from 1950 through the early sixties, and not perhaps in the way you'd expect--the fastest rigs used it the longest.
The arrival of OHV's with vastly greater than Ford displacement, and the simultaneouds arrival of cheap stroker kits for the flatheads, killed off the transmissions on the street early on, starting a run on torque tube converted LaSalles and Packards. Later, rears started to fail too regularly, and the readily available (roughly 1937-1964) family of big Olds/Pontiac rears and some '49 Lincoln rears became the norm for hot street cars and for heavy drag cars like g***ers. Transmissions were a problem throughout the fifties and early sixties for all hot shoes--the strong transmissions were rare and not really strong enough, only three speeds were available, and broken gears were everywhere. No Chev or Ford trans was strong enough by the time the OHV's started to really grow, and by the time the four speed T10 came along, it was already really too weak for the biggest engines! The best solution of the fifties was the gigantic, monstrously heavy Hydromatic, and other solutions didn't come along until the good automatics and second generation four speeds came out in the mid sixties.
Dragsters were a different story--even very fast ones used V8 quick changes into the sixties, and early Ford trans converted to two speeders were used fairly successfully in rails until direct drive became the norm.
The secret was tight end play (a must on anything helical, a point missed by all the street people blowing Ford trans every week) and softened gears. Note that compe***ion 9 inchers are now built with soft gears for drag use--100,000 mile street gears are too hard for dragging.
On the street, rodders approaching 400 cubes simply blew everything they tried until they moved on to hydros.
An interesting datum point I noticed in an old mag last night: Tom Mcmullen's famous flamed deuce roadster, powered by a blown 327, ran a '39 Ford/Zephyr trans and V8 Quickchange in the 1963 feature in HRM. In this trim, it turned 11.59 @127 in the drags and went 157 top end! The next year, it was converted to a four speed and a strange '55 Chevy based quickchange, probably for damn good reasons, but the point is that it was a workable car at a shockingly high level of performance with very primitive components. Would this stuff survive use with modern slicks? Hell no. But it is workable in a simple street car if sensibly set up in terms of slop and endplay. Mebbe a tech article on early trans blueprinting?