Projects Vail, Conkling & Shosie Bros. A/Gas Henry J found, rescue begun!

new 31 spline Dutchman Motorsports axles were ordered for the '61 Olds rear and the housing was blasted & sent off to Josh over at Trick Ch***is (608 312-8469) in Clinton Wi to be narrowed to a 57" overall width. we centered the housing so we had to specify equal-length axles. we got top notch service from both Trick Ch***is and Dutchman and we highly recommend both.

the wooden furring strip is the length of the upper leg of the ladder bar and was used to plot the lay of the bar.



here is the full-size template we used to plot ladder bar geometry. trig is not my strong point so this was an important tool in their construction.

 

those are 3/4" heims at the front and 1/2" clevises at the back. bars are around 55" length

 

Holy ****! those ladder bars are wicked man.

I still have to visit you guys and check this thing out. My J shouldn't be too far off from running again. I'm thinking I'll drive it up and visit you guys when it returns to the street.

 

Can't tell if it just the angle of the photo or what but it sure looks in this photo that the end of the ladder bar is below the scrub line.

 

---------------- Now playing: DMZ - First Time via FoxyTunes

in this photo the front of the ladder bar is not yet attached to the crossmember and is laying on the floor

 

Great thread...lovin' the build and can't wait too see more!!!! Thanks !!!!

 

before i describe what we did with the rear springs, let me preface by saying that the result is a work in progress, due mostly to a miscalculation on my part...hey, i'm allowed at least one, right? i knew that the rule of thumb for cutting springs was that; you cut a spring in half you double it's rate, right?

wrong...that works, for coils...but not leafs. we needed more leafs in the pack than what we had.

a lot of the mid '60's g***ers ran 1/4 elliptic springs in back with a relatively long ladder bar. the 1/4 elliptics gave the advantage of having a fully-floated suspension that was located only by the radius rod (ladder bar) and typically a panhard rod, and perhaps watts linkage to locate the axle laterally. remember that coil-overs were just starting to be used and were not really typical until the very end of the '60's. the "vision" we see for the car is to try to keep everything on this car to be typical of a c/gas car already in evolution in the post 1968 to 1970 or so rulebook period. the rear suspension like this would essentially be kind of a holdover from a circa 1965-6 build and more limited tire science of that era (hence the long ladder bars); but still be evolving with other improved aspects (i.e. clutch-flite, brakeless front end, etc).

we cut stock Henry J springs to build this setup, and the mounting plates are modified Henry J parts as well...not much waste on this car...a lot of s**** gets recycled into something else.

 

we ended up ordering a panhard rod from S & W Race Cars. i dont think we could have put a kit together to build it any cheaper than the $49.95 it cost.











we adapted a '59-'84 chevy trans rear mount to the Winters tailshaft housing with a simple 5/16" thick steel plate with countersunk allen-head capscrews. Alex built a super-solid center crossmember, with k-legs angling forward, outof 2 x 3 steel tube. this will also serve as the anchor point of the ladder bars. a second, round tube trans crossmember will be made to bolt to '55-'57 chevy manual trans mid-mounts bolted to the ****tershield. the reason for this is to alleviate the strain on the aluminum Winters front pump cover plate-snout piece.

 

nuthin' like carving on brand new parts to make 'em fit together!

...though that's not exactly true... Charlie at Winters said that the front pump cover plate was new-old-stock and had been laying around in inventory for over 35 years!

the problem was that the front pump cover plate had the Chrysler a-833 4-speed bolt pattern and pilot register on it, which would not fit our snazzy new Lakewood Chevy ****tershield. i carted them off to shcool in hopes of attempting to mate them together there...but a newfound friend at school, Vic, took pity on me trying to scrounge around for tooling to try to get it done there. Vic and i took a field trip to his home shop, where he has a fine little machine shop, and more importantly, a nicer boring head for doing the job on ONE of his TWO Bridgeport series II vertical mills. the decision was arrived at to modify the more "common" (meaning replaceable, or fixable if we ****ed it up), and that meant whittling (boring the register hole to the Chrysler size) on the Lakewood ****tershield. we needed to hold about a .001 fit as well. luckily, it went real smooth. Vic, thanks a heap. you are a machine god. while we were at it, we also punched the Chrysler 4-speed pattern into it as well

 

Very nice work!!

Scott/ScottRodscustom.com

 

Actually, you were right that reducing the length increases the rate, and, a quarter elliptic has half the rate of a semi-elliptic. Sometimes theory doesn't quite hold up to actual practice.

If the mounting location is different, it will support a different percentage of the cars weight, affecting the required rate.

 

thanks Relic Stew, as always i can count on you for dishing the real dirt on good, solid engineering practices. we could always use your input for this build; you still coming over to oversee and inspect on saturday around 9am?

 

Great build, keep the updates coming.

 

here we have the ladder bars attached to the center k-member. note that we had to angle them slightly towards the center in order to clear the bracket plates used to mount the 1/4 elliptic springs. we will mount the driveshaft loop attached to tabs on the top leg of the ladder bars

 

here is the first look we had from ground level outside the car of the ladder bars

now onto mounting the springs...as i said, this is a work in progress and may change, as the ride height is too low in the rear and the springs too soft

we first made a drawing of what we had in mind for an adjustable bracket.



then we put it into practice....











and initially we tried this position for the shackle hanger portion...



then we clamped the springs into place

 

Keep it up...looking forward to seeing this in person...

 

nice work Dan. Say hello to Alex and Chuck for me

 

tacked, reinforced, and in place...





the ride height was too low so we blocked it up temporarily, until we fix it. we then stood back and admired the view...

 

thanks Bob, will do. PBRmeASAP, any time you wanna see it let me know.

 

I really like your build and I am not trying to be critical, but I noticed that the front mounts for the ladder bars look to be 1/8" thick, You might want to go with something thicker. I would make them from 3/16" or 1/4" thick material. The intersect point on ladder bar is a high stress area.

 

Awesome build. I really like how you're taking the time to get the stance just right. The bracketry on the rear suspension is really trick.

 

looking real good, kep up the good work

 

Sorry for the miss spell

 

Hey! There's a Henry J site in the Community section now.

 

how sad

 

You gave it a shot and my hat is off to you........is he putting the 4x4 ch***is back under it?

 

****, I lusted after that car since before I could read. Serious, dad had a Hot Rod from teh 60s witht eh car in it. It should be properly restored.

 

Nice work on the rear suspension, Im surprised with so few leafs Its holding the car up okay, I built a similar set up for my 31 chevy g***er using the stock springs and had to keep adding leafs until finally I got it to stay at the correct ride height and not be too bouncy, and keep the tires of the fender, total 14 leafs each side, Im curious as to what are you going to use for a clutch? Ive tried a couple clutches now and nothing seems strong enough, Im running blown poncho and a clutch turbo, there is no room for a twin disc, Nice work!

 

very nice work,sorry to hear the owner has no idea on the importance on keeping it period.you did your best man you should be proud any way

 

thanks for the kind words Bob, Royal & Tman

on one hand i just feel like i have thrown 6 months away and let a lot of people down....

but i do see the silver lining. i got my chops back, and i learned a **** of a lot about what to do and what not to do; and i can apply a ton of it to my own Henry J when i get rolling on it in a couple of years (gotta finish school & find gainful employment in the machine trades first)


gear jammer, the plan was for a Ram-etallic Ram disc and their Compe***ion series borg & beck pressure plate (#414)

about the springs, we ended up with 7 leafs in each spring pack and it perhaps could have used one more. i wanted to use 90-10 shocks on the rear to prevent too much squat on the line