has anyone built their own (kinda like in the Tex Smith shoebox book)? I am thinking of building my own for the rear of my '49 and just wondering if anyone else has traveled the same road and can offer any tips - also plan on building pocket drops for the front.
Yeah I made mine out of a 2" x 4" rectangle tubing . My friend Lil D cut them up all nice with a 4 degree angle for the pinion and made little nibs to center it & everything . They are solid as a rock . cost about $7 .
I built a set out of 3/16 material. Easy to do and have held up well. They have 35,000 miles on the rear of my 50 pickup.Sorry no pics though.
I built my own a while back... out of 1 3/4" x 3" box, 1/4" thick... so that they were 3" blocks... capped the ends, drilled a locating hole, and put in a locating pin (a grade 8 bolt with the head ground round). They worked well, but it's just a whole lot easier to buy a set... theyre pretty cheap, too. Unless you need an odd size...
I always build my own because I'm just too cheap to spend gas or postal dollars to get something here I can whip up myself for 1/10th the money in an hour. I use box tubing in heavy wall configuration, drill one side, tap the other for a 3/8ths or 7/16ths bolt and box the ends. BOOM! ........done. .....next project!
any particular way to determine what angle--what degree-- to have on your blocks?? i see alot of sold sets come with shims but i think a once peice design would work beter. but yeah, what degree? tim
I just made some for my '54 chevy last week. I could not find 1 3/4' wide lowering blocks that were 3'or longer so I made them. I could not find 1 3/4 x 4' box tubing, so I used 2'x4' and shrank them. I heated the sides then pessed them.
NO,Dan.......lowering blocks. I'm still not completely sold on pocket-drops for lower control arms. I know, I know......its been done for years and years but I kinda like the added spring rate of a shortened spring instead. I also don't trust bolted control arms versus factory rivited arms. Maybe a welded arm would be a little safer in my mind...
Are they going to look something like this? Do I need to radius them to fit around the axle tube? Am writing this away from home so am unable to go look at the car and figure things out-
still wondering on the angles, but your question about the radius thing, most parellel leaf seat ups have the "radius leaf mounting bracket" already welded to the axel tube so it fits corectly in the stock set up. i would asume that if you had to weld up the raduis park to be park of your block you wouldnt need shimes or any angle becuae you could just turn the axel in the raduis till you had the correct angles later
Mine arent radiused , we just use the spring perch that was on the rearend to begin with . Lil D figured that 4 degrees would be correct to keep the pinion angle correct when the car was down .
Dan....when I made mine for my old 50 chevy sedan delivery, I did just like you did in your drarwing. The rear axle I had came without any original spring brackets as it had come outa a coil spring car. I didn't weld the homemade blocks to the rear axle housing until I had the weight of the car on the springs and then I set my pinion angle. Welded the blocks directly to the axle housing and centered the wheels in the wheelwell opening when I offset-drilled the block. I think I drilled the spring center bolt hole [locator hole] about an inch and a half forward of where it usually is, due to chevy's having the damn center bolt forward of center.... It all worked like a champ........I even reused the original 50 Chevy spring plates with their lower shock mounts...Had to go buy some looooooong U-bolts and I stepped up to 1/2" U-bolts at that time...had to drill the lower spring plates for the big bolts...nuttin to it.
what is the best place to source the long u-bolts? 4x4 place, circle track place? Thanks for the help, it's nice to get a few opinions before tackling a job. Now that I look at it, I am one hell of computer graphic artist - that is a high quality drawing!
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