Alright another day slowly marching forward but I got out there. Got the boxing plates drilled and the spring mounts mocked up. Got the spring mount brackets for the axle about 80% done. Just a little more trimming, grinding, fitting and I’ll have them tacked together. been messing with my new band saw set up because a cut off wheel in this thick stuff is a joke. Think I need to switch to a finer tooth blade but in general so far so good. My original plan of shackle mounted lower shock mounts is not going to work. There just isn’t room. But I think this latest idea will work. I’m On idea 4 or 5 for lower shock mounts lol. The ladder bars, spring mounts, shock mounts, pan hard bar all want to be in about a 5” space. Being careful to make sure nothing will hit each other and you can get hardware out of each thing with out taking something else apart to get to it. Some times it’s unavoidable but most the time I think there is a way. anyhow, still feeling good about progress. Hopefully have the springs and ladder bars all sorted and tacked by the end of this coming weekend. Then I need to find some longer bolts for the pan hard bar brackets and I’ll put that in place, shocks last and then I’ll move to the front end. Just a few things to button up there. “Should” be a quicker reward for work hopefully. Been thinking of some bump stop options as well. I think in the back I can screw some pointed rubber stops into the rear cross member channel. Up front I’m not really sure where they’d even go. The front rails are getting a little notch for the spring the travel in so it doesn’t bottom out. Maybe I’ll just add a 1/4” thick chunk of rubber in the top of the notch to soften the blow a little? Shocking how many hot rods are going down the road with the front spring bottomed out on the frame rail. Checked a lot of cars at a show years ago and the majority had the spring touching the frame rail with the car parked and no one in it! I’ll post pix when everything’s in place right now it’s just a blur of clamps, shims and stands.
They all kinda look the same right now. I’ll post some once I’ve got it together and clean up my mess a bit. I figure if I look at a photo I took and I can’t tell why I took the photo/ what it’s supposed to be showing, it’s probably not worth a share lol
The Jalopy Journal
