Now, THAT is some traditional thinking on a modern piece of gear. If I was doing a traditional build, this would certainly get put on my car. Very nice.
Anyway Mart to answer the question, I asked Hughie and he says he cant tell any difference on curves, but I'm not sure we dont need more time to tell. He was pleased with your compliment thank you. Just for fun we jacked up the front of the A yesterday to see what happened on full "droop". The axle only drops 3 inches before the wheels become airborne, and there didnt seem to be much stress anywhere. It seems the shackles take all the difference in movement. Still working on the T solution! Cheers, Tom.
This is a really old thread but I had to revive it because I have done both the front and rear pan hard bars as outlined in this thread and I can tell all of you that they have made a world of difference in the drivability of my hot rod, especially the rear bar. Andy
Wow! I was leaning away from cross steer because of the panhard bar. This looks amazing and tucks right away! @flatout51 Solution?!
I made a dead perch on the roadster pickup. Used a Vega box, 'A' spring on the rear, shortened main leaf... Eyes are at 30*, no 'sway' either end. Cross steering does require front axle to stay put, this served me splendidly. Roadster pickup has a 95" wheelbase, fully boxed 'A' frame, runs a 472" LS6, high 10s 1/4 mile. This is a street driven car.
I used this and some other threads when putting Panhard rods on both ends of my 27 Modified. I cheated on the back and used rose joints but on the front I adapted a Citroen 2CV steering arm Sent from my moto g(6) play using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I can see this thread has been very well received, and it is very clever, but the bars look very short to me, which will lead to more side to side movement as the axle travels up and down. If you search out threads on panhard bars on this forum you'll find examples showing the panhard bar attaching to the fram on the opposite side from where it attaches to the axle, not to the spring mount.
While the above is true, in most street driven cars the suspension travel is fairly limited. If set up close to horizontal, within the limited vertical movement, the sideways error introduced by the shorter than optimal arm is negligible. In other words a shorter than perfect bar is better than no bar. (Unless ridiculously short).
Yes, Mart. Blues4U does make a valid point, but you are spot on. The sideways error is negligible and i have not experienced it at all in the A while driving it. What I HAVE experienced is greatly reduced sway in the curves which has improved the drivability greatly and therefore increased the fun factor. Andy
one reason for these cars to "hop" is worn spring perches /bushes/ worn out springs/ shox. err, I suppose thats several reasons really No disrespect to the original poster but the pics of Hughes front end looks like the spring is resting on the axle. Rather than allowing the spring to flex and absorb the energy by expanding via the spring shackles, when the spring is sitting on the axle and the energy has no where to go its transferred into lifting the car un weighting it which causes the tendency to hop .. A bit like when your riding a mountain bike and you un weight the bike to get airborne, its the same principle, Im not saying the panhard wont help... even Henry fitted the later 40s cars with an anti roll bar ( sway bar) but "roll" and "hop" are different things ..
Mart, re you question on the springiness issue with the old Ford type rod ends, you are correct, there is an on and an off ( push or pull) compression in the tension spring but its negligible, its almost the same idea as the compliance in a rubber or urethane bush, its there but its just a wee cushion..
Great thread, and an incredibly neat traditional looking fix, but one question........ should you not be addressing the above issues first, if they contribute so much to the handling issues that are supposedly being fixed with the addition of a panhard rod.
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