Technical Transverse Spring Suspension Issues on 1947 Ford after reverse eye leafspring install.

On my 40 Ford those aftermarket rear tube shock mounts are both the same length, 8 inches from top edge to bottom edge. Can give you more detailed measurements if needed. Could being the wrong length cause a shock to bottom out? They have been on the car since 1961. There is a company making new ones. Here's more info:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/46-48-ford-tube-shocks.260964/

 

Your new panhard bar needs to be parallel with the road and axle when sitting at ride height. In your pic it's at an angle which will cause the bar to push the axle sideways. I have the posies spring on my 48 and am using the stock panhard bar with no issues. It has a bend in it for a reason. If you're going to stick with the adjustable bar then you should put the same bend/geometry in it as the stocker.

Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

The original '48 Ford rear shock brackets are two different lengths. I've got no idea why. Henry must have known something we didn't.

All the aftermarket ones are equal lengths.

 

I agree, a panhard bar is best when the two pivot points are parallel with the ground at ride height. With it "level" at ride height, the side to side motion of the axle will be minimized through suspension travel as the bar moves in it's arc with vertical movement. As far as the need to have a bend or to not have a bend doesn't matter as long as it doesn't hit anything. All the bar (or, better yet, the parts being located by the bar) knows is where the pivot points are, and doesn't care if it has a bend, loop, or knot in it.

Lynn

 

You're correct if pivot points are level with each other. The fat fender Fords do not have their panhard bar pivot points in line with each other at any point during suspension travel. Old Henry's engineers put the bend in the bar to compensate for this pivot point location mismatch and provide correct geometry. The bend essentially shortens the bars chord length, relocates the radius arc the swing end of the bar travels through and lowers the bars fixed end pivot point....in short, "making the car believe" the fixed end pivot point is actually lower than it really is.

Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

As Lynn said, the bar doesn't know what is in between the two end points. It could be straight, bent, tied in a knot, do loop-de-loops, invisible, or made of dinosaur bones. If the pivot points aren't at the same height, it's not optimal. No arguing with geometry. Henry might have been close, since it was basically the first application for Ford, but maybe he wasn't perfect. Sure it probably works OK, but not perfectly.

 

So, I’ve moved onto the rear of the car and have a few torque tube questions.

1. Is there a speedo gear retaining clip on a 1947 torque tube part number B-17286 like in the van pelt drawing.

http://www.vanpeltsales.com/FH_web/FH_images/FH_rearend-pics/ford-rearend-32-48-A.jpg

there isn’t a clip, and wasn’t one to be found anywhere and the gear, thrust washer, and front bearing are just sliding around. There’s no slot in the drive shaft for the clip either. The car has been driving around like this for nearly forty years. Perhaps the U joint was holding it all in place? Or the mating speedo gear wouldn’t let things move? Need advice on this one.

2. How does one inspect the center bearing? Or, are there any detailed instructions on how to checkout everything on this torque tube? Can I just slide the whole shaft out then back? Haven’t tried that yet. It is off the differential.

The rebuild kit for the u joint did come in handy. The old u joint was bad, but for more than one reason. Turns out the yokes of the old u joint were bent(spread open too wide), and the whole thing was rattling around. I’ve since seen a post on H.A.M.B. mentioning the same problem possibly caused by repeatedly side stepping the clutch at 3k. Luckily my dad had another one I could put the rebuild kit in, so I did. Much much better now.

It’s not a typical u joint replacement on these either. I had to dremmel the old clips out. And you get one shot at putting it together because you’re not getting the new clips back out. I was lucky to have a good core around and see the advantages of buying the whole thing for $100 instead of the kit for $50.

The Columbia has this cool little brass tag I was able to polish. I’ll have to upload a few pics.


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

The rebuild kit can't fix this. Much better. Now black instead of bronze. Can't wait to hit 70 mph on the highway with this thing. The tag cleaned up nicely

 

19fordy, alchemy, thanks for your posts on the shock tube brackets. Seems like I have the right ones. I hadn't seen that image on the van pelt site. It appears my part numbers are different by one number, but they are a matched set.

 

just noticed in your pictures on April 11 that your front sway bar is facing up causing the dog bones to bind.
And on the pics dated May 7 sway bar is facing down as it should. maybe this was the cause of some of your grief.

 

Good eye Karl. I noticed this as well when taking it apart and seeing the dog bones were practically hitting the shocks. Ooops! It was installed wrong. The dog bones weren't binding though. It was actually working fine, just looked weird. When a car hits a bump on one side, one side pushes the dog bone, the other side pulls. Installed the avant garde way, the roles are reversed, but still the same exact action. Only if the sway bar is at an angle where torsion wouldn't be introduced would it not work. But, the short answer is... Yup, I goofed up. Thanks for the keen eye Karl. Let me know if you spot any more.

For now though, my current focus is on getting this whole speedo gear clip thing figured out, and how to reseal this clam shell. The little rubber o-ring kits look like they took a length of tubing, vacuum hose or otherwise, and are selling it for $12 or more as a seal. I don't see the original style cork being sold anywhere. It's not even in the van pelt drawings. I'll be looking more for that notch for the clip today. Maybe I missed it.

 

Found the notch. Didn’t have the shaft pushed in all the way. I wonder if I popped off the clip when pulling the differential off. Launched it somewhere. Well, the clip is nowhere to be found. Got a new one coming.


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

The driveshaft is supposed to be attached to the pinion, not loose. If you are saying the driveshaft can be slid forward, it needs repair. Remove the torquetube and you'll probably find a missing pin that holds the coupler to the pinion.

 

Probably compensating for torque roll.

Sent from my XT1710-02 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

The torque tube was slid forward to take the pinion coupler pin out. This is pulling the driveshaft out. I just didn’t slide it back in far enough to see the speedo gear notch in the driveshaft. It’s all good. The torque tube is completely out. Of course the drive shaft can slide forward this way. I’m about to reattach the pinion to the coupler with my new pin and attach the torque tube now that it’s all pretty and painted along with the radius rods, backing plates, etc.


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

Hmmm. Ran into a snag and the car show is less than a week away!

The rear leaf spring is 2-1/4 wide, the old fold banjo we pulled had a shackle mount spacing of 2-1/8, and the shackles seemed to be bent to make up that 1/8 inch difference. The Columbia shackle mount is only 2" wide total, and the new shackles are straight. This causes a gap of nearly a quarter inch. The bushings and the shackles are about a 1/4 too long/wide for the differential, but perfect on the spring. Cutting the bushing shorter, that's easy enough. But then there's a gap with the shackle because the shackle is straight and welded on one side. It can't just be tightened down. Washers could be added. That's the current plan. Is there something I'm missing here?

When measuring from the axle tube to the face of the shackle mount, the Columbia is 1/8 inch further away, which suggests we should put a 1/8 inch washer on that side. Perhaps another 1/8 inch on the other side to make the dimensions all the same?

The question I posed my father was where this Columbia came from. It was installed in a '39 ford pick up. It made me wonder if the '39 pickup had a 2" rear spring. Although it is a '46 Columbia, which should be the same as the '47 Ford, was it altered for the pick up? Or what?

Any ideas on what's going on here? I'm about to throw 1/8 inch thick grade 8 hardened washers on each side, after cutting the bushings shorter, and calling it a day. Stop me if I'm being stupid.

 

Sounds like a fine solution to me.

 

Okay, we have a bit of a problem. Time for a little show and tell, and maybe someone has an idea of what to do next.

So, I was tightening the brand new aftermarket hubs from speedway onto the axle, and the axle locked up and would not rotate. It wasn't hardly torqued that much and I stopped because I knew something was wrong. I couldn't see for sure what was wrong and decided to try the hub on the other side of the car. Same thing. I tried the hub on the old axle, same thing. Decided to try the other new aftermarket hub, same thing. Hmmm.

I inspected the hub and noticed one part of the machining wasn't concentric - the thrust surface relief for the axle inner race was off to one side. So, I painted where the impact on the hub likely was with blue dry erase marker, assembled a little until it went "grindy", rotated, then disassembled. Yup, the area went shiny, but all around, not just from being off center. I put the bearing on an axle end to see how close the race was to the bearing cage - quite close. I then put the bearing in the hub and looked to see how much the thrust surface went past the bearing cage... This really shows how off center the machine work is if you couldn't see it from the photo with the blue dry erase.

It also seems like it might be scraping on the outside as well. The outside diameter is larger than stock, you can see in the photo where the two are compared, and also the photo of it on an axle... sorta starting to scrape, but maybe if the aforementioned problem were fixed it would barely fit in there.

I'm thinking about returning these hubs and finding some good originals. The hubs that came off? one is not 1940 style and the other has the studs welded on. My father is upset because he paid $160 each(*edit, $99 on sale) for something unusable. I could probably get a machine shop to remove the material for the relief, or I could with a die grinder and a steady hand. The other end could just be crudely ground for clearance.... most expensive brake job ever.

 

Casaday Bee-Line Service. ...Pasco. Did my buddies 36.

 

I’ll drive it down there and have them take a look when the car is drivable. Maybe they’ll have a different answer when they see the car. Those are the guys I mentioned calling. I believe the guy’s name is Justin?


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

It looks like we're going to reuse the hub with the welded on studs and another hub my dad had stashed away. Here are some pictures of the deeper original relief and the thinner thrust surface inside a 1940 style hub. Unlike the defective aftermarket hubs, you can't see any bit of that thrust surface with the bearing in. It's supposed to be that way, otherwise the hub hits the differential's inner bearing race. We also measured the depth of the relief, it's also more shallow. The thrust surface is the correct depth on the aftermarket hubs, but that's no help.

 

Good original parts beat repro parts every time. Henry didn't mess around, he built good stuff. And there are a million original hubs floating around on guys' back shelves. Just gotta ask.

 

Q: Can you shim up a car to fix a lean?

A: Well, a picture is worth a thousand words, and here's three pictures. The lip of both front fenders sit right at 27 1/2 inches. Perfectly flat. Not the best for a single driver, but great for two people around the same weight. One of us better start eating.

Two shims. One for the sway bar bracket to make it level, another for the spring saddle to make the spring level.