I have someone that wants a T Bucket frame with a Torsion Bar front end on it. I need info on constructing a front end like this. Pictures and info would be great. There was a T at the Alter Boy's show this year that had a nice set up but I didn't get pictures of it, I think it had a BBC......... Thanks guys.
Here's a few pics of one I admire a lot. Believe it used a commercially available torsion bar www.swracecars.com For more, check out LKE's posts at the T-Bucket Forums
I agree that front end look good. And it would work on a dragster. But not such a good idea on a street car because there is no provision for articulation.
If you can find a better pic than this one, this car by Lee Osborne has sprint car torsion bars on the front. You can see the arms peeking out from the lower corners of the grille shell. The beauty of T-bars is their infinite adjustability. If you design the mounting and link-up correctly you only have to play with bar diameters to achieve the ride desired. There are charts available to calculate bar diameters and arm lengths that equate to spring rates.
A fella from the Good Times CLub had one in the 60's I think. It was in a rodder's journal and I think it was called the Torsion T. I guess it was one of the first to run a small block chevy and come in under weight so that no fenders were needed at that time.
This T was at the Syracuse Nationals this year. I think I heard that Lee Osborne had a hand in building this one too.
I have been thinking about this type of suspension as well. Is there anybody on here that has driven one of these? Thanks for the website 22Track, i have a few questions for those guys.
I noticed thast Lee Osborne's name was mentioned a couple times as being the creator of really neat hot rods that feature T-bar front ends. I was just at Lee's shop here in upstate NY this past Wednesday and saw that he is working on a deuce for himself that will feature a longitudinal bars for the front and cross bars for the rear. Just amazingly effective and very neat appearing stuff. I was also at his cousin John Birosh's shop just around the corner from Lee's place. John is always touting the great points of T-bars and will use them when he can. Lee got his education in the bull rings of sprint cars while John raced all kinds of things and was a crew chief in the NASCAR ranks for some time. Each gave it up to return to upstate NY to slow life down a little and tinker with old cars. Glad they did. If you want chassis work done, you cannot find a better pair to give you advice and help.
for the street you need a separate bar for each corner if you have a solid axle. this allows for wheel movement that doesn't affect the other corner. A VW style front torsion bar with an adjustable anchor works too.
Dragmaster used to make fad T,s with torsion bar suspension. Jim and Dode martin out of southern cal.
Man, if ya end up building a frame like you are talking, PLEASE keep us posted. That could be to cool. Not trad. but very cool indeed!
Keep em coming, I also want to do a torsion deal on my Hudson. Here's the setup that was on my F/C. Notice the axle is above the frame. Like underslung. Sorry about the pic but you get the idea. I'd like to do something similar on the hudson so I can keep the frame horns.
If I do it like the F/C, I can keep the frame horns and keep the frame low. I'll just have to mount some short shocks and I think it will work fine. I'll mount the torsion bar above the frame behind the radiator shell.
The rear will be lower than this, you can see better from this angle how low the frame really is. I have a 2", .250 wall seamless axle tube and ford king pin bosses. The axle will be straight across in front of the grille shell.
How does this set up get away with NO shackle or (visible) way of allowing for the swing radius of that torsion bar arm? Seems it's destined to rip the mounts off the tie rods the way it looks now.
It, very simply, doesn't need a shackle! The torsion bar is mounted parallel to, and secured to, the frame. The opposite end is mounted, as is typical, to a finger which is tied to the axle. An adjusting finger is mounted to enfage the finger and simply by screwing the finger in or out the torsion bar is caused to rotate which in turn either increases or decreases the spring rate which in turn raises or lowers the front of the car. This front end is very close to what Chrysler used for years in the sixties and seventies. And it works beautifully.
Great info sofar guys...........customer wants torsion bars hidden in the cross member, much like the old VW's. This way we could run a four bar and have the axle hang from the 'arms'. Maybe I will use old VW parts and see what happens.
Ummm...yes it DOES need a shackle on the 'bone. The roll axis of the front axle is much longer than the length of the torsion arm. The setup pictured will only work through a limited range of motion before it begins to pull the wishbone sideways. Hitting a speed bump for instance would try to bend both 'bones in toward the chassis. It appears they are using the torsion arms to replace a panhard bar and locate the axle side to side. The Mopar setup you mention tied the end of the torsion bar into the lower control arm at the pivot, so the bar arm and the control arm arcs were one and the same.
The classic Beetle suspension is not exactly a torsion bar in the front. Rather than an round bar with splines on both ends, it is a stack of flat leaf springs packed together. It works the same way, but might not be as adaptable. There are springs in both tubes in the front, and running just one front tube and spring assembly might be too soft. The rears, however, are the archetypal torsion bar, with splines on both ends. They are available in several lengths and rates. If you could "liberate" a torsion bar tube from a bug pan, you should be able to adapt that. They are beefy, and usually survive the rustiest New England car. Porsche 924's and pre-'85 944's, believe it or not, have that same rear suspension setup, and it un-bolts from the body (high-end sports car, my arse). Oh, and X2 on what exwestracer says regarding the shackle. He is spot-on.
Keep in mind that the torsion arm doesn't have to be attached to the axle or 'bone. If you raised the bar up higher on the frame rail and laid the arm across the top of the 'bone, it would work just fine, BUT you would need some other (correct) means of locating the axle side to side. You could do the same thing with the setup in the original post. That's basically how all dirt sprint car front suspensions are built, although the torsion bars are in front of the axle.
It seems to me that if the shackle were on the left side (not visible in the photos), that the system would work well, the torsion link on the right acting like a Panhard bar. If the torsion link were mounted "slipper" style, ie: resting on top of the 'bones, you'd have a lot of suspension noise and a lot of wear, not what I would recommend. Now if you used the torsion link as a lower "A" arm (with the torsion bar acting as a pivot for the rear of the "A" arm, and fabbed up an upper "A" arm, you'd have one clean IFS. And a copy of a Traction Avant, minus the FWD. Reverse the adjustment (adjuster bolt to the rear, bearing on the frame, spline inserted into the link), and it'd be cleaner. Cosmo
I am not building a T, but a sedan type car. I got a set of bars and brackets from mid 80's Toyota pu and another set from a early Chevy luv pu. Plan on the front being parallel, and the rear being transverse mounted. I have mocked and tack welded the front brackets, nothing on the back. The first pic is a front view. The second one shows the Toyota carrier being held by the split bracket the has a ring to help retain the arm. Do not know if a longer home made arm will soften enough or maybe I will have to turn the bars diameter down
I knew of several T roadsters using the VW front end style of trailing link suspension in the Houston area back in the 70s. A vintage hotrod 26-27 Track Roadster, Deuce nose, 3pc hood, full belly pan, etc. built in 1947-48 by a USAF officer named Willingham used torsion bar suspension up front. The bars ran inside the frame rails and attached to the spring perches up front.
The Jalopy Journal
