Hey - I met you at Autorama. I am friends with Matt P and also work at the General. Would love to come out and see your car. You're doing an amazing job. Mike
I'd love to see a shot or two of it! I know a few other guys here on the HAMB that have used this setup and they felt that the car steered and handled very well.
Looks great...wanna get rid of that pesky piece of scrap coupe dash? : ) How do you like that firewall? Any complaints? I'm thinking of getting one.
Mcfly - The firewall is pretty nice. The only problem I have with it is the fit to the cowl near the body line, and the shape of the band that's on it. I picked up a new brookville firewall band, and swapped them out this weekend and solved both issues.
It was close, but almost like the radius was too tight on each side leaving a gap that the seal wouldn't have filled. I thought the shape of the band where the cowl lacing sits looked funky too. Other than that, the feet lined up well and the firewall set nice in the body.
I have used a stock firewall when we assemble a Brookville body and replaced the stocker with a firewall like you have with no problems several times. I also have one in a PU now and it fits good. Really like your build!
Well I haven't gotten a whole lot done on the car the past few days. I cut open a knuckle Monday night with a cutoff wheel when my grinder hooked and came back in my hands. Anyway, a few stitches (barely missing the tendon) got me to focus on some small things this week. I painted the insides of my frog-mouth scoops and dropped the stainless screens in the Strombergs: Also, I got my gauges in today. I'm running a stock gauge insert, and only keeping 3 gauges. I decided to run a 2 1/8" water temp and oil pressure, and a 3 3/8" tach where the speedometer was - I think most of us drive off a tach anyway. I had to have a fuel gauge, so I came up with the idea of mounting it high and far back on the driver's kick panel so only the driver can see it when sitting in the car. Classic Instruments made these for me. The colors and font are reminiscent of a '40 panel. Here are the pics:
I've been working on the master cylinders for the brakes and clutch. I made an adapter for the brake master cylinder to go from the three bolt pattern to the two bolt pattern later part. I initially thought I was going to use outboard ports, but as you can see, I need to get a master cylinder with inboard ports. I was thinking about making a bracket that captures both master cylinders (like Ionia does). I decided to have a separate bracket, mainly to make it look less bulky. The bracket will bolt to the outer rail, it's clamped in place in the photo while I decide on its final location. flthd31 - here are some photos of the steering setup: Full Left Full Right
Your steering pics are somewhat enlightening to me. Whenever I had pondered a cross-steer setup, I figured the steering-box would need to be way forward on the frame-rail. Obviously, that's not the case, and the angle of the draglink is perfectly fine.
Thanks for the pics. Here's a shot of mine. It's in just about the exact location as yours only higher on the rail. I'll be connecting from the bottom of the pitman arm. Wish I had done it your way...looks cleaner.
I started to set up the pitman arm using the '39 part, but it was going to have some funky bends in it. That earlier pitman arm worked out well. As far as height - that's as high as I could get my box and not have issues with my Fenton headers. The nut on the pitman shaft is above the oil pan, so I don't think I'll have any clearance issues.
been following this, just some things to think about. with the draglink and your cross steerlink, if you read up on them supposedly your meant to have them parallel in both planes, so when you look at them from floor level looking horizontal and also vertical so from above. I went to great pains to set my roadster up that way as best I could, I have seen cars that have been set up similar to yours but not as vicious angle. Supposedly that sort of angle will cause bump steer, I can't say it will and can't say it won't but might be worth doing some reading to make sure your happy before the cars all done. Other thing with the steering link, have you tried it with the sump on the motor? I'm assuming you took this into consideration, as the sumps are pretty deep and in the photos of the motor in the car to me it looks like the steering might hit your sump? I hope not. I'm loving your build thread, real class stuff. cheers.
Ideally, you would want the tierod and draglink to be parallel in both planes. This would help minimize bumpsteer, but keep in mind every suspension has bumpsteer to some degree. Hot Rodding is a series of compromises between form and function. I do not know of any traditional cross steer box that will get the box far enough forward to make the draglink parallel to the tierod, unless you go the route of using an aftermarket or fabbed column with u-joints. I'm not willing to use a u-jointed steering setup because that screams late model street rodding to me. Based on a previous vehicle I built with this same setup, as well as a buddy who had done a few cars with it as well, I can tell you that the vehicle behaves predictably with no noticeable bumpsteer. My mock up block does not have an oil pan, but I did have the real motor on a stand taking measurements as I went along making sure I had plenty of clearance.
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