Projects Straight 8 RPU build thread

Well, not much to report. Been out of town a lot for work and/or busy elsewhere with non hotrod related chores....ugh.

I went back to the drawing board. I've got the height of the frame at the rear figured out (I hope) and now I'll build a rear crossmember to make it work. The x-member will be flat. But this doesn't leave much space between the frame rails and the arch of the spring. No worries, instead of fabbing the x-member and welding it between the frame rails I'll notch out the frame rails for the x-member and then weld it in place thereby giving me plenty of room for spring travel.
I did pull my rear spring pack apart and removed every other leaf which also bought me some clearance. So, I'll have to pick up some more square tubing this week so I can start cutting and welding again.

The spring is going to need some attention with a wire wheel

 

Looks like a neat build that I'll try and keep track of now.

 

Wow, that’s a lot of leaves! I bet it rides a bit smoother from removing some of those.

 

LOL, Yea, I think I can probably ditch a few more. Since I don't really know what I'm doing I've opted to just pull every other leaf for now and adjust accordingly once I have the body and bed in place.
Bobby

 

OK, rear x-member Take 2

I grabbed some more 2.5x2.5x3/16 square tubing. I took a cut-off wheel and proceeded to slice off one side of the tubing to make a "U" channel. I'm going to notch into the frame rails from the bottom and insert the tubing as a rear x-member. The spring won't fit inside the tubing. It would have with 1/8" wall tubing by not the thicker 3/16" so I opted to spend a miserable hour with a grinding wheel "massaging" the spring pack to fit.
I still need to "massage" the main leaf but I have bulk of the spring pack where it will fit.
More to come... ...eventually...

 

After a pleasant morning of floating the kayak down the river with a few frosty beverages I ended up with some garage time. Basically my day consisted of floating on the river, frosty beverages, fabbing on the hotrod and a great pulled pork sandwich and grilled corn on the cob for dinner. Woohooo!

Success!!! it looks like its going to work.
I started out by grinding the main leaf down to size then bolting the rest of the spring pack back together. Since that seemed to go fairly smoothly I went ahead and cut the x-member to the proper width and then marked the notches in the frame.
After that there was nothing left but to bite the bullet and cut the notches out of the frame. Once the notches were cut out I put the x-member in place and set it on the spring. It looks like its going to work out just fine.
I'll have to dress up the frame a bit in preparation for welding it all together but I can pretty much call it done.

 

Looks good Bobby! Ride height looks better too..

 

Thanks Scott!

As with everything else, getting this done just opens up a whole bunch of new issues....LOL

I pulled the torque tube off the diff tonight and promptly dumped at least a quart of nasty old foul smelling diff juice on the floor....yuck.
So, the next 2 major hurdles are the open driveline conversion and the front axle wishbone mount. Time to start the whole handwringing, head scratching, frosty beverage consumption planning again.

Bobby

 

Don't that old dead dinosaur smell good? The aroma lasts forever.

 

I hear ya!!
I was a regular one man Three Stooges act taking the torque tube off. I already had a drip pan up at the front of the thing, I placed another at the rear. The front drip pan already had some stinky juice in it (and dripping over the edge....ugh). Well I managed to knock that over and spill that onto the floor while tripping over some of my junk and knocking the rear pan out of the way. Meanwhile it had started raining and I had to slide the tube out the front of the frame. Naturally it hung up on the steering linkage that was hanging down thereby causing another location of spilled stink juice. By the time I was done I had that stinky crud up to both elbows and on the front of one leg....lol. So I was soaking from the rain and covered in nasty sticky stink juice with a mess all over the floor....Situation normal.

So tonight I decided to tackle the shaft coupler. I ground down one end of both pins. The pin towards the diff came right out no problem. I pulled the shaft up and onto the bench (promptly smearing nasty diff stink juice all over everything) and spent the next hour beating the tar out of the pin to no avail. I finally had to drill it out....sheesh.

Tomorrow its off to the wrecking yard to pick up a slip yoke for the T5 trans. I figure I better have that in hand so that when I start searching for a rear yoke I can get one with the same "U" joint. . With all of that in hand I can start on the open driveline conversion.

Have a good weekend everyone!
Bobby

 

What a great weekend!
On Saturday I decided that I HAD to do something about the mess in the garage. I started cleaning and putting stuff and tools away. I had to focus on one little area at a time but before long I had things mostly straightened out and swept up.
Well, once I got all cleaned up I decided I better set the body in place to see how the ride height turned out. Its awesome!!! After putting the body and bed on, I hung the doors, grabbed a steering wheel and proceeded to make "vroom vroom" noises and put some miles on it. My mouth got so dry I had to have a frosty beverage to rehydrate.
I'm pleased with the way things are looking.
Now I need to figure out a wishbone mount for the front and rear wishbones. I'm going to try my best to not spit the front wishbone, I think I can do it. So, once again I'm back in the handwringing and head scratching stage. This could take several frosty beverages to conduct proper planning.
I had my trusty helper in the shop for a little bit

 

I just received this shot from a friend of mine.
He had to run along beside me to take the pic. I think I was running along an old 2 lane road at about 60MPH at the time (well, in my head anyway)

 

Awesome! Take a ride for me...

 

I decide to revisit the front suspension and figure out a wishbone ball mount. What I'm thinking is welding a couple of tabs to the inside of the frame rails that the wishbone mount will bolt to. I had some 1 1/2 square tubing and some 3/8 flat bar so I started cutting, bending, and drilling.
I need to clamp it all in place in the frame to see how its all going to fit. I might have to recut the square tubing to get the angle right but here's where I'm at.

 

I've still been battling the wishbone mount. I had to remake the square tubing pieces. I didn't do a good job of making the pie cuts and I didn't have the angles quite right. I drew it all up on some poster board, figured out the angles, and started cutting, bending and then matching up to my poster board. I got it all welded together and then made some brackets to weld to the frame.
Naturally, after hours and hours of measuring and scratching my head I tacked my brackets to the frame and tried to bolt it all together..... ...nope, wouldn't work...LOL. I had to break my tacks and knock the brackets off the frame.
I did some research to find the dimension for the distance between the spring pack center bolt and the center of the wishbone. I came up with 44 1/2". Today I laid it all out again. The 44 1/2" dimension didn't look right but got me close enough to get it set where I needed it to be.
So, after several false starts and just as many backward steps I think I have the front suspension in place (well, I still need to finish welding the brackets for the wishbone x-member and finish up the ends of it)

 

That looks pretty darn good!

 

Didn't recognize you without a cowboy hat....you are gaining.....think dirt drags

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Thanks all!
Larry, yea, thoughts of dirt drags keep pushing me on. I would sure like to get this thing up there. I don't want to officially come out and say that's a deadline or anything like that but it would sure be cool to have this road-able enough to drive it up there next June.

I welded in my bracket tabs this morning and bolted the wishbone in place. I then dropped it off of the jack stands and jumped up and down on the suspension. Woohoo!! it all appears to function like it should, no binding and no parts fell off or broke so I'm going to call it a success (I still need to trim the top of the bracket and cap it so its flush with the frame and I think I'll tube the bolt holes to prevent crushing of the square tubing)
I'll be on vacation next week so every thing is on hold for a bit. When I get back I guess I'll finish up rear suspension; weld in rear x-member and figure out what to do with the rear wishbones.
Another positive thing happened this week. I was visiting a buddy's shop and realized that he had a metal lathe. He even said I could use it. That means I can order a yoke and seal and start fabbing my open drive conversion for my banjo rear.

 

It's been a long time since I had anything to report. Life has been nuts and a bathroom remodel has been eating up any garage time I had. I got lucky today though. I went down to buy the new bathtub and there wasn't one in stock....dang. That left me some time to mess around in the garage.
I was able to remove the bed and weld in my rear suspension x-member. I know its not a lot of progress but it felt good.
The next hurdle will be to figure out the rear wishbone mount. I think I'm going to have to shorten the rear wishbones about 8" but it should be too tough.

Bobby

 

.....so you aren't going to tub it....

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Sounds like you "washed out" on the tub deal Bobby.......
T time instead!

 

Thanks guys
It looks like fun and games are over again. I picked up the bathtub today so its back to the remodel....ugh

 

Holy nut jobs brother!!! Y is not a question here it's y the hell not!!! Wow, I'm enjoying this far too much as I've a pair of packard you have already helped me greatly just reading ur adapter segment. I'd love to ask several things. Is the packard trans ok, for sale, the 288s are they ok, for sale, mite u have one of the aluminum heads? I'm loving you project. As for the naysayers.... ask the man that owns one , ok. But better to ask a man that drove or rode in one. The speedometer in mine spent alot of time above 70mph bone stock. If I have any parts that can help drop a line please. This isn't my flavor perse. But what a direction. I8-5spd... hehehehehehehe

 

Nice pics. Love those long sexy engines. The 327 is the improved beefed up engine. If a 288 smoulders tires in a stock sedan, yours is gonna get yer attention.... I had a thought tho. As packard had both delco and autolite electrical systems, u now have it in a ford body, need an auto lite distributor? I have one laying about as both my cars are Delco I need it not...

 

I'm glad you're enjoying the thread. Thanks for the kind words.
Whatever you would like to know about the trans adapter feel free to ask. I'll do my best to answer.
I do have some spare parts laying about, I'll send you a PM

Bobby

 

Thank you for your time and effort, I am thinking I need to make a copy of your adapter. I have been thinking bout building something a bit different, then I found this forum... there is a fella you've spoken w about a year ago who water to put a sbc into a 51-54packard. I joined the forum n now cannot find his post to try to communicate w him. I'm not a purist, but I know 51-54 packard fairly well. Am hoping I can help those who r using them or parts of them.

 

The distributor is interchangeable, but they r different. They offer an electronic hall effect switch system that fits the points plate , is Un noticeable w cap n rotor on. But so far I've not found a kit for my delco dist. The other parts you have I am interested in as I'm keeping my first packard pretty original. Been in my family since new, gramps bought her, his 7oungest brother bout it from him at 15 , lied about his age , joined the service , eloped to md. To marry his sweetheart also underage. I'm pretty certain their first 3 sons were made in that car.... when I got back from d.s. I traded her from him . I have a spare car for parts. Tho my ides is similar but different. Latell 30s triumph car body, jeep wrangler chassis, 288 thunderbolt powerplant....

 

The adapter was made from 2 pieces of 1/2" thick plate. One plate to match the Packard, the other plate to match GM then weld them together......easy-peasy.

The hardest part of the adapter was laying out the bolt holes for the Packard. Since I'm using a GM bell housing that side was easy, its very easy to get an engineered drawing of a SBC block with the specs for the bolt holes. Not so for the Packard.
Trying to get the exact measurements for the Packard was tricky. At one point I hauled my Packard bellhousing down to Kinkos and had them photocopy it. Between the paper copy of the bell housing and using transfer punches I was able to get my measurement. I made some down and dirty stubby transfer punches for the starter bolt holes.
Once I was confident that I had the crankshaft center point(s) and the Packard and GM alignment dowels located I was good to go and the rest was cutting, drilling, tapping, welding, etc.

Bobby

 

Hey bobby, any new progress? Seems there's a few more packards coming outta the cobwebs hereabouts!!!

 

Yes Bobby....dirt drag right around the corner...

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