Hot Rods Have you ever scraped the pavement with your hot rod??

yes, learn to drive a low Hot Rod differently, since raised it 3/4" made a huge difference

 

duh......

 

Yeah scrapped my front bumper a few times learned how to drive and where not to drive with a low ride love the look and painted the front bumper every now and then

 

Yes and it’s the best feeling


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Front cross member is the lowest point and everything else is above that - albeit some things not by much- road kill can be a problem and always careful to take sharp in lines or declines( parking lots and driveways) at an angle

 

Every person with a lowered custom laughing at the premise of this thread

 

GREAT looking car! This picture should also be posted in the 46-48 thread.

 

After I lowered it, I had to weld "skid patches" on part of my exhaust pipes where they hung lowest under crossmember. Saw an occasional spark shower in the mirror when I was caught off guard by unexpected dips, so I added a decal above the glovebox that read "If you ain't sparkin, you're too high!"

 

Hello,

We saw plenty of lowered cars in our teenage days. But, for the most part, all of our cars in the high school group were stock height. Then, something happened and we all wanted our cars to have a rake. Nose down and possible lower in the back. The first one was the white 1957 Chevy Bel Air Hardtop with a dual quad/4 speed/Positraction and headers used for my friend’s daily driver. He wanted it low all around.

For some reason, he liked the lowered attitude of the Chevy sedans. So, we spent a couple of days cutting the coils and putting blocks in the rear. We had this one to go by: My brother’s 1951 Oldsmobile Two Door Sedan.

He had seen it before in our home movies. He liked the look of low in back and lower in front. So, in asking my brother for the exact specs, we got to work when we drove back over to his Bixby Knolls house. Our hard work was pretty good for a couple of first timers. It looked mean and ready for some action. We had to be careful anywhere we went in that fast car. In full acceleration with just my friend and I, it was fine and the 57 flew down Cherry Avenue. It was tempting to go fast anywhere, but now, the lowered car drew the attention from the local police.

Then in succession, a 55 Chevy 2 door post, a 56 Chevy 2 door post and a 54 Chevy Bel Air all got the cut coil springs lowering in front. The cars all had their own characteristics. They looked different than all of the other Chevy sedans at our high schools. What did I do to the 58 Impala? At first we put on some spring clamps to see what it looked like in a lowered stance. Then we cut the coils to the right height. In a way, it was a little hilarious as all of these cars got the Cal Rake look around the same time. People thought we all were crazy.

Even with surfboards stuck in the trunk and rear seat area, it was very low and possibly illegal. Each of the boards weighed approximately 45-50 lbs.

Jnaki

The one thing all of us had to be careful with when driving was not to overload the car with people. The more people that were in the cars, the lower it got. For the 57 Chevy, being lowered all around with the nose slightly lower, caused some funny things when going down the road. With 4 big teenagers and a lowered car, every bump or dip in the roadways caused the driver to slow down and go over slowly.

At the drive in theaters, the other Cal Rake cars could go over the dips slowly and not get stuck. The 57 Chevy had to park on the end pole of a row, so as not to get stuck on those steep hills between the rows. That is ok, because he liked to park in the back darkest row of the drive-in theater. Ha!

My Impala did scrape the big drive-in theater dips, so I had to go over them at an angle. With 4 people in the Impala, it was selecting the back row or the outside parking spots. There was no way to get up and over the big bumps with 4. It was too low. So, a white 57 Chevy and 58 Impala were usually next to each other on either spot.

The final thing was that no one got a ticket as the lowest part of the car was always higher than the steel rims. So, when we got pulled over for a vehicle check, as everyone got out, the cars were now above board and legal. As we drove away, it was very close as to how much or how close to being illegal they all were. The more people in the lowered cars, the more it got to the illegal below the rims levels. But, when the local CHP or police measured, they were all legal…until becoming overloaded with a bunch of teenagers.
YRMV...

 

Limbo lower now...
How low can you go...

 

I have with alot of them, even the roofs on a couple of them.
I had a 57 Chrysler Windsor Wagon several years back, it had 6" lowering blocks in the rear and the front torsion bars cranked down...it was on the ground and no bags and no air shocks ...just low.
It would scrap alot and in the town that I worked in most all the city streets were concrete , lots of seams, and it hit about every one of them.
One day I put it up on the lift at work just too look things over and found what was doing the scrapping.....
It had duel idler arms on the steering and the nuts on the bottom of the arms that holds it onto the shaft had ground almost completely off, about a 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch of nut was all that was left....the cotter pins and there holes and most of the castle nuts gone.
Replaced everything....and left the ride height the same.
Then one weekend took the car too the coast, had three passengers and some camping gear loaded up cruzin down the road, drive line would thump the tunnel on some of the bumps , then I pulled into a little coastal town and ended up in a wrong lane...quickly cut across the lanes and bam...what the hell was that someone yells out..as I see one then another of them round bumps "turtles" that they have marking the lanes of the roads,...go flying across three lanes of the hiway and one hitting the wall of a A&W and the other continued across the parking lot.....we got the hell out of town.
After returning home took a look under the car...found a big dent in the front crossmember.
Didn't raise the car ...just kept a eye out for "Turtles".

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Not the frame. I have caught the nerf bars a few times. Snowman

 

I’ll trade you the California roads for our Iowa roads.

 

I have skid plates on my cars to protect the oil pan

 

The Stude has two inch blocks in the back and 1 1/2 coils cut on the front. That isn't all that low. However to get the car driveable I "sorta bent" my own exhaust pipes using sand and a big pipe bender. Not successfully. I have two inches of clearance in the center of the car. Eventually I'll get a professional exhaust that goes all the way to the back but right now, as long as I am careful I get along ok. Although I noted a piece of the driveshaft tunnel scored the paint on the driveshaft? The exhaust is the drag point on the 38, but not nearly as bad.

 

Frequently. I've had to RAISE three of my lowered cars because dragging on the ground got really tedious.

 

Hell I have to be careful coming in my own driveway with my stock height OT furrin car. I have a rocker panel that I need to fix on it because I got careless coming in the driveway. On flat pavement the car doesn't even look low. having driven probably 200K in lowered rigs including my 48 and my old 51 Merc the guys say that you have to learn how to navigate uneven spots are correct. It is a learned method of driving.

 

On my 32 channelled roadster I have barely 4 inches clearance on the bottom of the grille. Went to a local show and had to go through some roadworks. Very slowly as it was gravel and heard a bang but everything seemed OK. Wasn't until washing the car a few days later that I realised what the bang was.
There must have been a dip from the gravel back to the bitumen and it had taken the bottom of the grille out and tweaked the sides. Had to remove everything and repair and repaint and that was $1000!!!
If I had realised at the time I could have lodged a complaint with the Council and probably got paid for the repair. Their fault. No photo of damage but the one attached shows clearance.

 

My 38 Olds sedan was an inch off the ground and would scrape on the crown in the road, no "U" turns in that car.

 

YES

 

Yep! Just try to be careful...

 

"HAVE YOU EVER SCRAPED THE PAVEMENT WITH YOUR HOT ROD??"

Driveway and parking lot aprons? ......Yep. All the time.

 

My wheel fell off once

 

I wrinkled and bent the "chin" below the grille twice, once on a high "speed bump" and once going on to a highly inclined driveway. I finally got smart and made a "nerf bar" that takes the abuse and actually saves the sheet metal. I used 3/4" cold-rolled round bent to conform to the area. Painted it first to see if it would work, then got it chromed after it proved successful. (Not shown - It bends up at the back and bolts solidly to each front frame horn with 5/16" thick flat metal plates welded to the round.)

 

That's a cool picture.

 

My oil pan has been inverted on the bottom side. Due to bottoming out. Every so often I have to change my oil plug due to being rounded off. Seems it sits lower than everything on the car now.

 

Knew some guys in the '50's that used to scratch the pavement by spinning the rear tires.