I planning on building a truck arm stile set up for the back of my 52 chevy and would like to see the different ways people made there setups work. I plan on running bags and I need some ideas. I had a quick look but never found any web site with them on it if you know of any please post them as well.
Sorry...haven't looked into how to post pictures, but here's a link to some of my stuff. http://public.fotki.com/-Mike-/ Look at the 54 Conestoga folder, double click to inlarge. Mike
Mine in a 48 Ford F-1. Stock arms ,made everything else. I boxed the entire frame front to rear. The panhard sits level at the finished weight. I ended up using 250 lb roundy round springs. The rear shocks are for a Volare. The truck rides and handles great and leaves the line hard and straight.
Heres a 53 Olds we recently did. We made the rear ladder bars simular to how we have been doing our 49 -51 Mercury and Ford ladder bars. This setup required zero floor pan mods and will lift up over 10" yet will lay frame if wanted. Some people believe this style of suspension does not articulate enough for a street car but that's not true. We use rubber pivots and easily get 4" of side to side twist. Rick Erickson of Extreme Kustoms <!-- end of AOLMsgPart_3_12da5885-1557-442b-a941-216d43f87ae6 -->
Nice job, I noticed that you only have a pan hard bar on the back.Does the rear end have much sideways motion from the full down position to full up??
Been doing some searching and came across some interest set up. The big thing is the all the different ways people made there cross members.
great thread idea. i was thinking of doing this setup on my f1 if i wasn't happy with the leaf setup i have
To answer your question about 1/4" total or not much at all. The longer you make the pan hard bar the less side to side movement you will have. look at the pic's I posted and you will see that I set my pan hard bar's level at half lift. Rick Erickson of Extreme Kustoms
My buddy Rudy built mine when we bagged my 53 Olds. 40" long. Mounted on the frame close to where it X's. Reinforced bag mounts on the bend of the arms.
Realy like the idea of using long arms on X member frames. Any pic's of how you made the cross member fit with the X member or did you reinforce the X member some other way ?
I would not use tubing to build a trailing arms style suspension. You need something that allows flex like I beam or back to back C channel like the originals. Sure the bushings will take some of the flex but eventually something will have to give. Clark
Heres a few pics i have found on CB. I dont know too much about it as i dont know who built it but i have got a few ideas from it for my build. Cinc~
Clark you nail it on that pic.those are the stile bags I`m using as well. I know where your coming from with the flex in I beam but how much movement is in a car that is low.I figure I will have at most 10 inch of travel in my setup.I can see this being a problem with a 4x4. I almost have my arms build. they are 50 inch long built from 2x3x1/8 wall box steel. I was thinking about this problem. When the arm are build and in place I will see how much they will move. If I don`t like it I`ll change it then. I am build them from the 2x3 cause I have it in stock. would like to build some I beams but I am on a time crunch and keeping the KISS method in mind when build stuff on this car.
Use tie-rod or heim joint ends instead of urethane bushed ends and you won't need to worry about flex in the truck arms.
I would think the average hot rod / custom would have a max of 6 inches of twist. Most cars only have about 3 inches down and say about the same up. I have seen the I beams in action. Afriend thought something was wrong with his bars. he only jacked one side of the car up leaving the otherside down. he called me cause he couldn't believe how far the bars where twisted. Clark
I will post some pics soon, I'm using my iPhone right now. On my 54 Buick we used the orginal truck crossmember but the aftermarket one saves you from making clearence in the floor board. So we took the factory crossmember and I stalled it inside of th factory X. Basically we cut the X in half on both sides and pushed them to the center of the car. Next we installed the crossmember flush against the remaining X and tacked it. We had to notch the floorpan to allow the top hump some clearence. The notch is under the seat and can't be seen and doesn't interfere with the factory power seats. Next we pulled the X pieces back in line with the cut and mated it to the crossmember. Now the crossmember is completely held in by the factory X and the strength of the frame is still intact. The factory Buick set up was similar in that the trailing arms mounted to the torque tube. This set is much stronger has more travel and allows for an open driveline. Next we had to cut out the factory spring pockets in the rear and move them in 3 inches. This allowed the new arms to stay at the proper distance from each other so the bushings did not bind. We notched the axle spring perches to match the angle of the arms and bolted and welded them in place. The front brackets for the truck arms can be un-riveted and flipped over to allow more clearence and lower stance if wanted. With my flipped the arms don't hit the floor and the bumper nearly touches the ground with the factory Buick springs. With muscle cars the floor pans have to be notched but with big body 50s there is lots of room. But with Chevys you may interfer with the frame hitting the top of the axle tube. A C notch will fix that and depending on how low you want it the center section may hit the trunk. I love this set up. Great ride easy to lower or raise or bag later on. NASCAR used this set up and may still. Make your measurements and don't sacrifice strength. When in doubt brace it
I have mine set at 5 inch ride height and It will lay frame. so at most 10 inch. I don`t thing the bags will give me that. It might be closet to what you saying, 6 inch.
Yes, I beam trailing arms do twist unlike box tubing but they must be made out of a quailty tempered steel and not the normal I beam you can get at your local steel yard or they will eventully break. If you need to have the I beam style arms the best way to make them would be like GM did them. Out of tempered steel C channel back to back. Yes, the bushings might wear out faster with a more ridget trailing arm. Recently I replaced the bags on a car we built about 17 years ago. It had been used mostly as a daily driver and the bushings did need replacing. Rick Erickson of Extreme Kustoms
If they are mounted fairly close together at the front it takes a lot of the stress out, plus using large rubber bushes make a load of difference too. Thus: The twist is really only a degree or three of actual rotation, perfectly acceptable with the correct rubber bush. People tend to use poly bushes a lot nowadays, which often have almost zero flex in them.
Yeah, it's another suspension design like the GM and Fox Ford 4-links where the geometry just doesn't work when you take out the rubber, urethane will break parts or create all kinds of odd roll-bind issues. Was at one point looking at doing truck-arms for a 3/4-ton setup using off-roader-style Johnny Joints, which will retain rotational flexibility and some degree of isolation, anyone ever done something like that?
i got "used" cup arms from muscle car products in mooresville for $75 ea and then a cross member from stock car products for 250- came with the rear end brackets and mono balls on the front- they had a tonof 56" arms there and they are super strong and have al the mounts- you can even get a full floating rear housing from them
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