Projects The bucket of ugly! A de-uglifying thread...

bloody stalker you

 

I wrapped up the quick change install today, next comes a driveshaft. Larry

 

dang that's pretty JW

 

NICE!

 

Larry--That really does look Good!
Gary--SHHHH!!...Now everyone will want to send me something so they can get a CARE PACKAGE from the Kiwi...Seriously...I culled a few Extras from my collection, and you are more than welcome....

 

Looks great!
Will the long lower arms and the short uppers combine to give pinion angle problems? I ask because I'm considering changing mine to 4 link as well so I can drop her a little more, and the arms will be about the same lengths.
It could be a potential issue...but with the limited travel we have??? I haven't plotted it out yet and seeing you already went this route I figured I'd ask.

 

This is a question that has been dogging me for quite some time. The more owner-designed unequal 4-bar suspensions I see here on the H.A.M.B. the more I wonder how well they actually work when the car is driven on anything other than straight and level. I have owned and driven a car with a poorly designed and executed unequal 4-bar setup and it was, on it's best day, spooky to say the least.

The problem with my car was that as it leaned over in a turn the rear suspension would cause the turn radius to tighten without additional steering input. The rear axle was being pulled and pushed forward and back on one side or the other as the suspension went through its travel giving the car a progressive rear-steer condition. Spooky.

 

Well, it's kinda like bring in the country anywhere else......different mindset for sure. Even though it was Christmas holidays, there were still cattle to be fed, Catfish and Trophy Bass to be fed in the pond, a missing mule that wandered off (it's believed to be in the next door neighbors place, but that's 2500 acres of scrub brush to search!). Plus, it's cold and rainy here, so we just stayed inside and visited some too. Quite a few semi desirable cars sitting around (most off topic for thus forum) including a 1957 Chevy 2 door handyman wagon and a 1951 or 52 Ford F-2 or F-3 school bus that I REALLY wanted ( but need even less than I need a hole in the head). Sorry, no pics due to the weather, but it's all good since there's been such a drought here! I wanted to uncover my '26 T project from my early 20's (It's SO applicable to this thread!) and shoot some pics of it but the rain never let up, and I''ve already got a cold on this trip, didn't need it to get any worse. I've considered passing it on to someone else, but I REALLY want a much more traditional styled T (and at the same time, a much less radical T to be able to just jump in and drive whenever I want)

 

Very nice Blue. Money well spent. But if your like me spread it out over 30+ years. I've never regretted doing something the best way but often regretted cutting corners.

Actually it's been nice enough here to get my roadster out some. I drove it up to the local coffee shop yesterday to spend a couple of hours with my other OLD guy friends. Kinda chilly little before 10m but by noon I didn't even need my jacket. Sorry northern friends.

 

Not always easy to visualize the effect on the uppers, that form the triangle. I guess that I'd aim for least wheelbase change due to a body roll. Bar length (and difference in lengths) likely a strong contributor as well. You're spot-on, describing a rear wheel steering 'effect'.

 

Good questions and good points, all of which I have thought of during the drawn out time figuring this all out.
If any of you have followed my build thread at all you will know that this is rear suspension design 3.0

I made sure that the lower and upper arms are parallel to each other and are at the same plane with each other as they move.
And yes, because of the physical limitations of the frame kick up the top arms had to be short.

I worked the suspension up and down, side to side and found that even in the extreme ( bump stops removed and full axle travel up to the frame and down towards the ground - 6" up and 6" down from neutral ride height)
that the changes are very minimal.
Side to side articulation is nice and smooth.
A very small amount of movement that could potentially cause rear steer and less than 3\8" of slide in and out of the pinion yoke at the driveshaft.

Pinion angle stays close to the 3 degrees that I have built in at ride height through the full range of extreme movement, and it stays bang on in the normal range of limited suspension travel.

In the limited range of normal suspension travel ( physically limited to 3" by the travel of the coil overs and bump stops)
There should be no noticeable rear steer or anything like that.
I think that this little car will handle quite nicely with what I have built.
Larry.
(The bump stops)

 

Wish i had spent the dollars on a quick change! Looks great and new shinny steel always looks good too.
Back to wheelbase: seems wheelbase is all over the board so i did some research for those with new builds.
My t is 106 wb and new corvettes are 106.70.
My research led me to a funny thing, auto makers have done research to design the optimum wb design and it comes from dips in the road.in the old days dips were different everywhere so it almost did not matter.
If think about it when roads were built in the early days it was done by panels and even some roads today are panels leading to varying elevation changes. As you go down the road, one tire going down and one going up giving a rocking motion.
I am sure all of you have noticed the rocking motion on some road somewhere.
As years went along the dips in the road got further apart and so did the wheelbase of cars.
In conclusion go by what chevy(for a fast highway cruiser like their corvette) thinks the distance of dips are or go out on the roads where you usually drive and measure the dips in the road and design accordingly but if you plan on being a highway cruiser maybe go with 106.70.
And one last thing watch out for other dips in the road measuring the dips as it could cause a dip jam.

 

Gege..The best thing to go with Dips is.....CHIPS!........ Man, I`ve got to spend less time on here and more in the shop...Got the fence back together today, but no word on the Rearend as yet....

Talked to one of my Customers for a while on Friday, and he let it slip that he started building a T in the Basement of his House about 25 or 30 years ago, but never finished it and it`s still in there! Only Problem? Well, it sounds like a `70`s Fad style build with a 4-71 Blown 350, Hallcraft wires and a Jag Rear with Borrani Wires!!...I`ll try to get him to allow me to visit the car and maybe get some pics....This guy also has a 63 Galaxie 390/4 spd car stripped to nothing...He bought that one New!! You just never know.....I`ve been working on his current Build on and off for Two Years, and this is the first mention of either car!!!

 

Heck that Galaxie sounds like it would be an amazing investment. I actually thought you were going to say that the only way of getting the Bucket out of the basement was either pulling it down to fit up the stairs or have a bloody big crane to lift the whole house up and to one side for awhile.

 

It may be at the point he may just want his basement back, start by offering to clear it. JW

 

Definitely need to follow up on that, Kiwi! Years ago (like in my late teens) I found a '27 T roadster on '32 rails w/ a Desoto Firedome hemi in it for a thousand dollars on a guys back porch. It was a complete finished car that had been built in the 60's and sitting for many years. Couldn't convince the bank (my dad) to loan me the money! He was a died in the wool Chevy guy and said mopar parts were "expensive"! He was probably right, but Damn It!


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We made it to El Paso last night on our way back to San Diego, if anyones been following the weather, Friday there was a huge ice storm on IH-10 in west Texas, probably saw a dozen flipped or jack knifed tractor trailers and another 15 or 20 cars that had spun off the road. We also dodged a major bullet! I wanted to stop in Ft. Stockton to check on a couple of things I've had my eye one, and the milage computer in the HHR said we could JUST make it but we would have less than a gallon of gas left in the tank. Since it's a new (to me) car, and I don't know how accurate that thing REALLY is, I decided to pull off in the town before (the thriving metropolis of Ozona) and get gas. Good thing I did, the two gas stations in town were both swamped, and we found out from other customers coming from the west that there was no gas available for 200 miles! IH-10 had been closed the last three nights, and Ft. Stockton was completely out of gas due to the huge influx of stranded travelers who ended up spending the night in their cars! (There are 5 stations I'm aware of in Ft. Stockton, including a big Love's truck stop and one of the other big one'). By the time we got there, 3 of the stations had gotten deliveries and a fourth was in the process, but the lines to buy gas streamed out of the stations and into the streets causing traffic jams! It was at least an hour wait (it took us thirty min. in Ozona), and looked exactly like the 70's gas crunch! Only good thing I can say is I did not notice any price gouging, so good on you Ft. Stockton! We should make San Diego sometime this evening!
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Awesome!

 

Seventies Schmeventies, you had me at 4-71. Sounds bitchin', but, as I've mentioned before, I'm a child of the 70's, so that style left a HUGE impression on me.

 

I left Dallas Wednesday and never got to El Paso until Friday so by the time I got to Phoenix Saturday morning I decided not to call Chip at 6 am to see the Bucket of Ugly and kept driving, back in Oregon today. Between I20 and I10 I counted 23 trucks and as many cars out of commission.

 

Damn, I wish you had!

 

Wedding Anniversary Today. Surprising how much practice you need to make `Yes Dear` sound heartfelt and genuine.......( Actually, I couldn`t do what I do without my Better Half. Have no idea what she sees in me. 18 Years and counting. I started married life later in life, too.....)

No T stuff this weekend. Have to start early tomorrow and tidy up my Shop. Looks like a small Nuclear Device may have detonated in it....

 

Chip, I tried to write you Christmas afternoon to let you know I was there, but couldn't get signal (not that I actually expected you to show up, I just thought it would be funny to leave a message here saying "Ok, I'm here, where you at?" at 3:30 pm ;-)

Congrats to you and the wife, Kiwi!

Jalopy45, glad you got through it safely! What a mess! As it is, we survived with just 2 stone chips in the windshield of my car. Apparently, they were either working on that section of 10, or they ran out of sand and started dumping gravel on the ice!

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Waiting "with bait on my breath" (is that right) for updates on everybody's Bucket builds. Then I think if I had, had a build thread (if their was such a thing as a thread in the '80s) it would be a ten year thread without updates sometimes for a year. I did thread the wiring through the firewall. Well I gotta go brush my teeth.

Karry on Gary

 

Nah, if you guy are rolling through Phoenix, just give me a call. Doesn't matter when. I am literally 6 blocks north of the I-10 at one of the most Central exits in the city. Throw my number in your phone if you are heading this way... 602 881 0175

 

whiplash: here are some pics of top bows day I was taking t to get the top and interior done in TJ, only kidding, I left it at Armando's in Hemet and was done in about 3 weeks. Great guys there.

 

A few days ago, on daddio's build thread, I said I wasn't ready to redo my car. A couple hundred pages ago on this thread, I said Chip had me thinking about changing my too stiff tube shocks to frictions. I think I can get those done before the snow melts. And, I'll move the steering column up a bit on the firewall to make room for my left foot. And then maybe...

 

And then maybe.... the snow melts and its still being worked on. JW

 

Hey ! What happened to our thread about Fred ?

 

You bet me too it Jeremy ... While I'm doing this little job, I may as well do that little job, oh then while that is out of the road, I will be able to sort out that other little job that has been a bug in my side. Oh shit, how did that happen when you are standing staring at that bare frame sitting on the floor? Yes been there done that and still learning from the experience.
Thanks GeGe for the photo's of the top bows and they look as I had invisioned. Almost at the same height with the middle bow slightly set higher. Is the braces that go from the header panel fold horizontally in the middle ?