Customs Studebaker PU Rear Suspension (Dream Truck Inspired Custom)

Hi Folks,

I'm thinking of getting back to work on my long-languishing chopped/sectioned Studebaker pickup. I wanted to start mocking up the bed, but realized the 8" rear I have in it is too wide for the custom bed I want to build. And narrowing the rear means changing the suspension setup...which as I looked at it more and more I decided it wasn't what I wanted. Too clunky.

I'll post before pics, and what I've come up with for a plan, but I'd also like some recommendations on getting parts laser or waterjet cut based on the plans I put together.

Here is the current setup -- I threw this together at least 15 years ago in a rush to get started on the chop/section work. I originally had the panhard bar above the rear, but moved it to behind the rear for a lower roll center. But I don't care for how I did that. It's going to have airbags (obviously).


Packaging everything was a bit of a chore. The existing x-member in the pics has to come out, and I had to re-work everything a number of times to get the panhard bar to fit nicely and not look stupid. At least I don't think it looks stupid, let me know if I'm wrong on that



I'm on the fence about the battery box. My goal right now is just to narrow the rear (about 4") and re-do all the suspension brackets so it's tucked in nice and neat. Then I can get on to mocking up the bed, ala Dream Truck.

Please do post or PM any recommendations for a cutting service. Most of the parts I could make in the shop, but I'd rather get them all ready-made so I can move this along a little quicker.

 

I'd stand the shocks up a little to 20 degrees if possible. Laying them over to 45 degrees loses efficiency. The panhard bar is a lot better when working horizontally, less lateral movement.
I'm in the same dilemma as to where to locate my battery, out of sight and accessible. I don't really want a long cable if at all possible. Love the graphics, more professional than a sketch.

 

It's great to hear that you are going to be working on the truck again. I just bought a 49 Studebaker truck last month and that was partly because of the metalwork video you and Ron Covell made. I remember you from visiting you when you lived in St. Louis and you were working on the chopped top Chevy. I like the panhard bar design in picture four. But for clearance issues, you can put a half-circle bend in the bar to go around the center section. The bar does not have to be straight to still be effective. I hope to see your truck on the road soon.

 

The graphics thing is pretty cool, Easy to sell projects with that.

The pan hard par looks good, but I only see you being able to use less than 1/2 of that c notch before the pan hard par and the lower bag/link bracket bump.


Try a Panhard bar in a J shape.
Now laying the shocks down does decrease their efficiency, but it also allows more vertical travel when you air out before the shocks bottom out. You can get 8" of lowering and just close the shocks up 4", that's why they are inefficient at doing their job.

Since you're redesigned now, try loosing the bags and all the mounting and sketch some ride tech shockwaves. It will be a lot cleaner, lighter, less parts and less cumbersome.

 

Why not move the panhard bar forward. The is plenty of frame surface on the kick up and the housing end mount could be incorporated into the top of the right side four link bracket. That would also help get around the clearance issue mentioned by 31Vicky.

Roo

 

Just a question, why so much kick up in the frame? It looks like the frame rail will be on the ground and you will still have tons of room from the bottom of the c notch to the rear end. Is it just the camera angle?

 

Sorry, missed this reply. The frame kick is that tall because I overshot when I built it originally. Whoops. I'm not willing to re-do that part so it stays. I'm also working with the parts I already have (air bags and regular shocks) as opposed to buying new parts that would give me a simpler setup...just because I don't have a lot of money to throw at this.

 

In case anyone is interested, I got the parts I needed cut at Welder Series in Canada. They did an excellent job at a good price. I also got their sway bar. I have some additional parts I need to fab up myself, which I'm working on now.

 

Bosses for the shock mounts... Did these a while ago, then got distracted by trying to learn to pinstripe and letter. That's a work-in-progress.

 

The brackets look nice, good to know that as a resource. Nothing wrong with using the parts you already have, that's the way hot rodders have been doing it for years.

 

This weekend I'm working on the driveshaft loop. I'd originally planned to use round tube with a drop out on the bottom like this:



But when I looked at my tubing bender I realized I can't bend the 1.75" OD tubing I am using to that tight of a radius. Smaller diameter tubing won't work, so I needed a re-think on the driveshaft loop. I saw some 1" x 2" square tube bent driveshaft loops for sale which seemed like a reasonable approach, but it wasn't particularly cool looking. It also didn't give me the drop-out bottom I wanted.

I designed something along those lines and am working on building it this weekend. I have to bend the flat bar for the larger half of the loop today, and then weld everything together and detail it. It's looking promising.

 

Nice work....but defiantly..."heavy" duty.

Mike

 

Further along, haven't had any time this week. All the parts are made, everything is fit, beveled for weld penetration and tacked together. Just need to weld it up and do some cleanup. Then on to the crossmember and 4-bar front mounts that join up to this.

I'm happy with the way this looks, but sometimes it feels like I'm swimming in molasses. Everything takes me longer than it should. I guess I'm a little out of practice, and I also don't have everything in the shop as well organized as I'd like - I've been doing other kinds of projects than metal fab the last couple of years. Except for the giant BBQ smoker I finally finished.

 

Nice smoker!


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

About damn time...

Rich

 

No kidding

Driveshaft loop finished. Tomorrow, front four bar mounts (with the bed mount incorporated). Then I'll replace the stock crossmember with round tube attached to the loop I just made, with the four bar mounts.

All of this screwing around is so I can narrow the rear end to tuck the tires in. So that I can build the bed I want. With a stock bed and fenders I could run the setup I already have, although I'm not happy with it for other reasons.

 

Love to see the pride a person has in a project even when it's not needed.
May (appear) a bit heavy but again, that's a cool piece.
That driveshaft won't know what hit it (hopefully it won't be needed).

 

It's not particularly heavy - it's 1/8" steel for most of it. They sell pre-fab hoops out of 1 x 2 x 1/8" rectangular tube, which was the inspiration for the construction. The rest of the crossmember is 1.75" OD x .125" wall round tube. Well, it will be. At the moment it's still sitting on the storage rack waiting for me to make the rest of the parts

The smoker, on the other hand, is DAMN heavy. The firebox id 1/2" thick steel plate, 1/4" plate for the charcoal chute, 1/4" plate for the firebox door. The rest is 16 gauge steel sheet and square tube with mineral wool insulation. But it holds temperature at 250 degrees (or wherever I set it) all day without any fussing with the fire. I need to make a Texas brisket soon.

 

OK, front 4-bar mounts almost done. I included the bed mount in these, which is the tab on the front. It makes it pretty simple when you can just have parts laser/water/plasma cut these days. There is no way I could have done a clean job on the Studebaker "S" in these by hand.

Making the filler piece was no big deal, but it took me a couple of hours to machine up the spacers to hold the parts in alignment for welding.

3/16" for the brackets and filler piece, 1/4" for the body mount tab. I need to order some plastic to make the bed mount insulators, but I'm a long way from needing that. The "grand plan" is to scratch-build the bed similar to the R&C Dream Truck, but with tail lights in the fins ala Bill Hines' Bat. That's what I'm eager to do, but I have to get the rear tires out of way first.

 

...amazing work so far,...keep us posted

 

Really nice work but a warning be careful with what you post. If the mods see this with airbags and shockwaves it will get closed down.

 

I started in on the rear 4-bar mounts this afternoon. This is the right side, which will include the panhard bar mount. I have one more axle hoop to add (to support the outboard end of the bag platform), more welding, and some cleanup. The left side is a mirror image, except out the panhard mount.

I like that the shock mount, 4-link mount, bag mount and panhard bracket all are part of the same assembly and not separate bits. The original setup I made years ago didn't have any coordination between the different functions, which always bugged me. If I didn't need to narrow the rear I would have left it alone though, so this is a great excuse to clean up the rear.

Man, I want to get this done so I can get on to building the bed, but it's going to be a while. More brackets to make, narrowing the rear housing, extending the rear of the frame (to make room for a gas tank, and clean up some other fab work I'm not thrilled about).

 

Top shelf work there Joe!

 

I know, it's like watching grass grow. But at least I'm moving forward on this!

Right - rear 4-link (and panhard/bag/shock) mount is done. The left side should go a little quicker, then the upper bag mounts, then...rip the old stuff out, box the frame and start putting the new stuff in.

I'm a little concerned about narrowing the rear end (it's an 8 in ford). Mostly getting the width right. One step at a time though.

 

All the 4-link brackets are done. I started on the upper bag mounts -- which involved bending 1/4" steel into a U, hard to get even and the right radius. More fussing required. But once the U parts are bent it's just a weld job and it's a wrap. Then I can get serious and start tearing out the old stuff.

Maybe some coffee and then head back to the shop...

 

OK, one upper bag mount done. Mostly it's just a lot of time trying to get the bend right. Hopefully the other one will go a little quicker, this was a pain in the neck. I wasn't able to get the bend as smooth as I wanted, but I think it's OK. You know how it is when you're building something, and you see every little undulation in the bend or goofy spot in the weld? That makes me crazy.

The round area on the flange is for the 1.75" tube crossmember - you can see that in the rendering at the beginning of the thread. The left side will have the upper panhard mount incorporated into it.

Thinking out loud, I should make some alignment struts that attach to the upper and lower bag mounts and are the right length for the bags at "ride height". The upper mounts can only go in one place side-to-side, and I can use that to get the rear four links in the right place side-to-side. Then the front link mounts width is set from that. So the only think I have to worry about is getting the axle centered side-to-side, parallel to the front suspension and at the right wheelbase. Still a bunch of stuff to figure out, but that would be one less thing to have to sweat.

 

Both upper mounts finished, the driver's side has the upper panhard bar mount "built in". Time to start making bigger assemblies, boxing the frame, narrowing the rear end. I won't have much time to make progress for the next week, family stuff going on. But after that I'll be back at it.

 

Back from hiking in Utah, got the rear crossmember made today. The hardest part (other than springing for the giant hole saw to notch the tubing) was getting the parts all jigged up to tack weld.

6" hole saw, that's about $15 per inch. I probably should have just used a die grinder.


Everything clamped up and square. Tacked together. This step took forever, but it's the right width and square and true.


Test fit, just about perfect. I'll use two big clamps to draw the frame snug against the crossmember when it's time to mount it, there is about 1/16" space right now. You can see the driveshaft loop I made hanging roughly where it will end up. The factory crossmember behind it will come out soon, the frame gets boxed from the existing plates I welded in years ago up to the last remaining factory crossmember that mounts the back of the cab.


All welded up. There is something funny with either my welded (unlikely) or my technique (highly likely). I'll have a nice bead going, then all of a sudden I'll get a flare up and a bunch of pitting and porosity. I stop and re-point the tungsten, grind out the bad spot and go at it again and it's usually fine. I thought it might be a breeze, but I had all the doors shut. I'm using a gas lens with a furrick cup. Maybe I'll bump the argon flow up just a tick next time.

 

The past couple of weeks have been pretty full of non-fun stuff. I think I'm past that, I was able to get back to work on the Stude today. I need to make the front crossmember that the 4-link mounts and driveshaft loop attach to. I'm using 1.75" x .125" wall round tube. the spacing at the outside of the crossmember is set by the holes in the 4-link mounts (which was determined by the height of the frame), but where the lower tube in the crossmember connects to the drive shaft loop needs to be higher -- because the bottom of the driveshaft loop is made to be removable.

After playing with numbers I decided that it needs to be 2" higher. I tried making two offset bends to get the job I needed, but I couldn't put them close enough together due to the way my tube bender works. Or maybe the way my brain works. Hard to tell some days. So I decided to make the job in two parts. I might not have thought of it, but I saw this in the build thread on Pat G's Spaulding T clone.

I made a fixture to hold the straight parts of the tube, well, straight. I made a little block of wood with a hole to line up with the layout line on the fixture so I could scribe a line around the tube for trimming.




After both ends were trimmed I beveled the joint so I'd get good penetration when welding. I clamped it up and tack welded the joint.


Then I welded the joint, dressed the weld and made a second one. They are still overly-long. The inside edge will get trimmed so that the step is 1/2" from the driveshaft loop, then I'll trim the other end to the right length. The upper tube will just need to be coped to git the driveshaft loop. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get this bit wrapped up. It got too hot in the shop for me to keep going.



So... Finish the front crossmember. Make the new rear frame extension. Remove the factory crossmenber and box the frame from the kickup to the cab mount. Cut the old junk out, narrow the housing and put it back together. Shoot, that should only take me a year at this rate. Jeez...

 

OK, front crossmember is finished. I'm not going to weld it solid until I have it tacked into the frame and the 4-bar mounts positioned properly.

I made a plywood fixture to hold the driveshaft loop and tubing pieces in alignment for fitting and tack welding. That worked out really well. I was worried about getting the 4-bar mounts on after it was welded because they are a snug fit to the tube to begin with, but it was pretty painless. The crossmember is probably 1/2" too wide at this point - once I get the boxing plates in I'll do the final fit for the width.

Plywood fixture. The hoop wedges onto the oval bit in the middle, lower tubes clamp to the right angle edge. I also made a spacer that fits between the tubes to accurately position the upper tube (it's just a block of wood the right width) but apparently I didn't take a picture of it.