Only the finest of rattle can for this guy. Lol. Actually this self leveling enamel from ace is pretty awesome and wet sands/buffs fantastic. Box needs a tiny bit more cleaning inside and sanding the paint off the gasket surfaces. Box bracket is all welded up and ready to mock up and drill into the frame. Jumping threw some hoops with the passenger side spindle but should have it tapered and back on the car soon.
Alright forward movement! I had a guy machine the taper on the opposite end of the hole in my pitman arm to flip the tie rod end over. Went well so I gave him the spindle to do the steering arm so both tie rod ends go in from the bottom. Surface to say he managed to do everything but what I asked him to do. Twice. So I made a drive to a buddies shop stuck it in a vice brap brap we have taper Managed to get the spindle and backing plate bolted back on during a nap. Hoping to have the hub and wheel back on tonight after dinner. also took a look at the posies super low spring for a model A in person and decided that’s the way I’m going to go with the T spring in back. We’ll weld a little box shaped notch in similar to the slot in this photo. and well, this is totally in related but to cool to stand next to and not take a photo. Hopefully it’s on it’s wheels tonight and I can get the bracket bolted to the frame and the box to the bracket so give the drag link angles a look see. Then it’s jist waiting on new box guts.
I like that little frame notch. Looks like it would be just enough and not be that big of a deal to accomplish. I haven’t had the opportunity to get under mine and looks for evidence of where it’s hitting on bigger bumps, but that’s a good place to check first I suspect. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Yup, just make it a little wider than the leaf to account for some flexing. Find some square tube and go for it. I was going to tape some play doh to my leaf and cycle the suspension and see if it got smashed or not. Seems an easy enough test. Got it back on all four tonight. Well, all four on dollies but close enough. These are the small ones from harbor freight. Something like $7 on sale and rated for 1000 lbs each. I’ve moved some heavy stuff with them but they really do work great for this little car. Only problem I’ve had Is if the wheels aren’t turned the way you want to go on the back end it can be stubborn. But that could be exaggerated by the tight space I’m working in. Thought this would make me feel like I got something done but I’m kinda feeling like “all that’s left is everything” at the moment
The Playdoh idea is a good one. I'm going to try that. re: all that's left is everything.....how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time....and I have to say you have been doing a great job at taking bites and making stead progress....an inspiration to me for sure! I keep seeing you make progress and when I think about my stalled progress I am motivated to get out and do at least something for a few minutes. Got the additional A rear leaf for mine reshaped the other night quick to match the shape of the T spring in honor of Take A Bite Tim. LOL
That helps Man I’m normally pretty good at making a list and just chugging last night got me. It’s not necessarily the car, just a lot going on right now. One of those moment where you feel over whelmed about way to go and just stand there froze instead of getting anywhere. Woke up with what I want to do today on the cars so it seems fleeting. As my good buddy @porknbeaner says “ain’t no hill for a stepper”
I have a pad on the kitchen counter than doesn’t move that has a week per page so at the start of the week I write down non work appointments. Things that need done of specific days etc. and then I make a list for the day either in the morning or the night before. Conversely you can always tell how stressed I am because the list goes from neat and orderly to sideways scribbles
Alright mock up with tie rod, drag link, pitman arm was a success. I’m going to compare a few geometry distances to my 46 which uses more or less the same box but there’s not much I can move at this point. Times to drill some holes, build a column mast and stuff it full of new guts Here’s a bunch of photos Blurry but this is how I’m keeping everything from dinging around during this stage. Cheap spring clamp snacking the tie rod and drag link together just slid the sector in, slid the pitman arm on and zip tied it in place because I mushroomed the hell out of the end of the sector before I said screw it and found a press to use. Bolted it to the bracket on the bench, I can slide this up pretty easy from underneath the car. Don’t know if it’ll be so easy with a column. Guess we’ll find out. Just a mental note that these pairs of holes are in line with each other.
The rest of my photos from the quick mock up box and bracket clamped in place. was intending to show the “triangle” of the end of the pitman arm to the steering arms. Just realized I don’t have any clamps on my temp tie rod. It’s the one off my 46 I had Beaner narrow for me. dropped tie rod arms hung from the bottom of the passenger side steering arm tucking right under the jog in the 46-8 wishbone. Because of this I didn’t have to alter my steering arms from stock at all. the steep angle of the drag link off the pitman arm in stock form near parallel with the tie rod with it hanging off the bottom after being re tappered. It’ll be different with the rest of the guts in the steering box, but it’s much better so far. I’m going to drop the car another two or three inches in the front so this may have been in vain and I’ll end up running it on top but at least I’ve got options this way. I’ll shownit better later but it’s nice that this bracket has set round holes and slotted holes on the bracket to frame holes and the bracket to box holes. You can adjust the column side to side slightly and up and down because of that.
Alright half way done with the holes. I mocked up the steering column and box again to make sure everything was where I wanted it and then drilled pilot holes threw the bracket Then I pulled it off and hit it with the step bit and cleaned the bevel up with a normal drill bit the hole towards the front of the car is round while the one closer to the firewall is slotted to give some adjustment. Mock up showed I’ll want the back of the bracket about 1/16 to 1/8 out so I kept the front hole where it was and drilled the slotted hole right in the center of the adjustment. This should let the back move out a hair to center the column and give the front room to pivot. The holes in the bracket are larger than the holes I drilled so it gives some wiggle room there as well. I drilled the holes roughly the same size as all the rivet holes. I figured I didn’t want to go over bored and have it feel like I Swiss cheesed the frame, and if it’s good enough to hold literally everything else together it should hold the box just fine. Need to crawl under and drill the two bottom holes and then find/make some spacers for them. Some thick washers and I should be done in that end of things. Next step is fix the busted threads in the cap for the box, clean up the sector and remove the circulating gear. Get them all painted. Then I’ll move onto building a new column mast. Still need to remove the column drop and clean it up. I’m going to clearance it for some new switches before I install it as well. I don’t want to take this apart more times than I have to. I’ll use the stock stuff to mock up the length of the column but I’ll leave it a little long so I can sneak up on final length. I noticed when I had the adapter and new steering wheel on it previously that the gap between the bell and the back of the wheel was wider than I’d like. So I’ll use this as a chance to tighten that up. Anyhow once the column is sorted out I’ll buy all the new guts and put it together full of grease and bolt it on! I know it’s going to need a pan hard with this cross steering set up but it’s not even on my list of things to get done right now. Figure it’ll be ok for pushing around the driveway. But it is on my radar Daily ramble: done.
@Dan Hay came threw today and delivered the brakes I bought off him a few months ago they came off this banjo that apparently came out of an old 32 hotrod in the Dallas fortworth area. He snagged the center section with the good gears for his 40 ford varmit build and shelved the brakes when he dropped them off he said he thought they were 46-8 though I had thought they were 40. Thankfully he’s right and they are the better brakes! I’m stoked step one: clean off all the spider eggs and smash the spiders you can catch. Step two see what we have! Seem pretty clean and complete. I think it’s missing one spring clip, which I think I have and the parking brake levers/linkage are gone. So I’ll need to find some of those. Pretty dang happy with these! My thought is to have the E brake set up before I plumb the car so I can stop it in the driveway.
Got the bottom holes marked to drill and the wishbone is in the way of getting the drill in place. I figure I’ll drill them when I pull the front suspension out to put in the new front leaf spring. So I got my posies 1001L ordered that’s the recommended 31.5 eye to eye super low. Also had Oldsboy get ahold of me last night and he’s got some ebrake arms on their way to me! Next micro project is getting the column length mocked up and then getting the column drop off and cleaned up.
A quick photo drop. What it should look like with the new springs. Seems like I should be able to run it with or with out fenders and have it look good.
Nice stance! I like '28-'29s best with fenders. Anyone can run no fenders. They just wrap around the tires so nice. You really fought this thing until you got it right.
Thanks, it’s just a phot rendering at this point but with the new springs that’s were it should land. If it doesn’t I’ll keep messing with it till it does. I’m actually concerned my t spring might sit it lower than this so I’ll have to see what happens. I basically want the top of the back tire to have the crown on the tire inside the fender but the side wall below it. I find that makes the arch of the fender opening and the radius of the back tires echo each other and look perfect. I think with the back wheels shoved up into the fender both the fender and the wheel/tire lose appeal for various reasons. On that note I’m gonna post some new stuff
Got the box bolted to the bracket and the bracket bolted to the frame today I adjusted the frame bracket and got the colum to center in the opening I adjusted the tilt of the box and got it as snug to the dash as I can and because I always mock stuff up a thousand times I stuck the hood shelf on. It’s gonna need some trimming. The hood support comes down in the same area as the further back bracket bolt In back and forth on cutting the actual fender. It makes more since to have it go under and have the bracket bolt over it. But that makes getting the fender off a pain in the ass because the box needs un bolted. Maybe ill slot the holes so the fender still goes under the bracket but a slight losing of two bolts let’s it slip out? Dunno guess we’ll find out. Just something to chew on for now
Don’t have much time so these photos may have loaded in a funny order I’ll jist try to caption them as I go here you can see the hood brace that comes off the hood shelf that will hit the bracket. I think it’s basically there to sturdy the brace to the frame. kind of a funny angle but I swung the hood side out to see where it encounters that bolt a little better I’m thinking I’ll cut it and then I’m going to create a wood piece to fill the entire inside of the hood shelf. I think stock it just has blocks under the hood side latches. In my head it being filled with wood makes it more ridge and should create a lot less rattles. Should make the snipped hood support negligible next i pieced my rusty column mast back together and lined up my mock up tube to measure made reference marks to note where the column should land added about a 1/2 inch to the bottom. I noticed when I had it mocked up with the wheel that the bell was further from the back of the wheel than I’d like. This will let me sneak up on it and get rid of that gap this picture shows both that I’m sharing this stuff so I remember later, and that I’m anal enough to take a photo of which tape measure I used to measure this so I measure the new stuff going together with the same tape. Reduces any weird tape measure end inconsistencies this is kinda out of order but shows that the top of the drop is 8.5 inches down from the seam I’m measuring from my note to self about that measurement after I cut it in half the other side of the measurement. Who knows how long it’ll be so I want to know for sure what I measure and not throw previous mock ups that led to all this out the window cut off tube lined up with the cardboard mock up half im back and forth between welding the new tube at this bead or further down the leak that rotted the mast out is further down so the metal up here seems consistently thick noticed after the acid that under that black paint is some plating of some sort? together minus the column support. I based position of the box and column on a lot of things but one of the biggest was where the wheel landed, that it didn’t look weird, block me from getting in the car, and didn’t smash my fingers on the door or dash lol lopped off end I’m working with now. Found some good battle scars on it. The truck this all came out of had to have been beat to shit on a daily basis Anyhow. Now I need to get the column drop off the old column remnant. Chipping away at it. Sorry this was all probably a better note to self than stuff you’d care to see lol
Love the “tube” shock. Lol I like your idea of slotting the fender to slip it under the bracket. That seems like a good solution and workable down the road for changes without too much hassle Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I called my buddy down and Pete and Jakes and had him measure their front shocks for me in about a dozen different places lol. This tube was a little fatter but close so I cut it to “ride height” length for a quick mock up to see if it all cleared with it where I wanted it. How’s your stuff going? Still holding the floor down?
LOL, yup, still holding the floor down. I need to fix a few bugs that have popped up on the Chevy, then I'm going to pull the rear spring out of the A to put the additional leaf in and have that all buckled up.
It's the next one up from where the spring clips are....the first one that's just a bit too short to reach the clips. So that will make 10 leaves in the back spring total....5 T leaves at the bottom and 5 A leaves on the top.
@drdave can you take a photo of that when you pull it out to add the leaf? I’d like to see how much shaping you had to do to get the A leafs to fit. Thinking I’ll likely have to do the same. Anyhow I handed off a few little projects to my buddy Ryan and tonight he got that column drop off the tube. Hack saw blade threw the clamping bolt he said it sprung a bit getting it off the tube so the gap looks like he took a big chunk out of it in this photo but he didn’t. He also got clever with a weird shaped drift and punched the lock cylinder out. Rusty and beat to shit like most of this steering has been on that note this is the bushing that normally lives towards the top of the column. It’s further down and smashed to bits and then rusted back solid. Wow. That’s it for the moment. Needs some time with my drill press to get a few more bolts out of it then I’ll clearance the spaces for the switches and clean it up
Here are some I took when I did it the first time. Top four leaves here are from the A spring fresh from the car. The curve of the leaves is a bit broader than the T ones. Also, you can notice the tips of the 4th from the top are aimed right at the reverse curve of the T leaf below it and would cause a rubbing problem. I tightened up the curve of the A leaves and added a reverse curve at the tip of the 4th leaf. Once I had that done, I tapered and round the ends of all of them of course. When I take it back apart, I think I will tighten up the curve on them a little more. They fit fine and dandy when it's all clamped together, but I think a little tighter curve will fit them better. Just for grins, here is a pic of the main A leaf and the main T leaf together and you can see the difference in the radius of the middle.
@drdave thanks man! The t pack I have has 5 leafs so if your heavier car rides ok with that and 4 shorties up top I’ll probably copy it. Did you just stick the A leafs in a make shift jig and use a press to bring them around? That’s what I did to reverse my mains way back when I did it. @Tman that’s been the driving force behind why I post what I do on my build threads. A lot of the information isn’t really online, hard to find in a book, gotta get it word of mouth stuff so I figured even if it’s minute “common sense” stuff I’d. Post it for the next guy... or for me when I forgot where I wrote it down
Well guess I’m hunting a new sector lol Ground the premed over surface off the pin that holds the roller in place and when we tried to press it out pop! I’m not exaggerating when I saw this box was very beat on, and very froze up. Oh well. To be expected I guess
The Jalopy Journal
