Projects 1950's Tube Frame Sports Car

The column will be collapsing. I ordered two pieces of tubing that will slide together and overlap about a foot. The inner shaft will be part nos 39 Chevy including the worm gear, part Borgeson DD tube, and part 3/4" shaft with the top end cut to have the early Ford keyed taper. I went back and forth on this but it's not that hard or expensive to make it collapsible and nobody will really be the wiser. Hopefully it never makes a difference but it cant hurt. The upper column support that originally came in the car is brass. I'll bore it so that it is a slip fit on the upper column tube when it's clamped tight.

 

Good plan. Used to see a lot of wrecks in the junk yards with the steering wheel wrapped down around the column. Some were obviously not survivable.

 

I was thinking about the telescoping tubes you might use a couple days ago and it dawned on me that you would probably need something to keep one from turning inside the other. My thought would be to drill holes and run a nylon zip tie through them someplace out of sight. Tough enough to hold them and soft enough to shear easily.

 

I was thinking maybe one 1/8" alum pop rivet. Haven't decided yet. Or one of those plastic rivets the Germans love to use on my VWs where you push a little pin in to expand and lock it.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/VW-BLACK-P...p2349624.m46890.l6249&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

 

Yeah, that would be cleaner looking.

 

One of the oval track companies, don't remember which one, makes double d tubing and shafting that fits inside for exactly this purpose. If I find it again I'll post the linl (well, I'll type in the web address, as I still don't know how to manage links...)

 

Boy am I dumb! Ididit has it and so does Speedway. Made for the job. Hope this helps....

 

I'm going to do a couple tests with two pieces of tubing and one of these 1/4" plastic pins. I think if I can pin two together I'll set it down and stand on it. If I can stand on it but break it by stomping I'm thinking that's about right. If it works I'll turn the head down smaller on one and pin the column.

 

Sounds like a good plan. You can add more if needed until you get what you want.

 

If you run out of them Honda uses a bunch of them in various sizes.

 

Today was one of those days when it doesn't look like I got much done. My tubing for the steering column and the nos worm shaft aren't here yet. I decided to make the bushing for the lower end of the front shocks. They push in from both ends of the shock eye and tighten up between my spring shackle plates.
If you've read thru the whole thread you'll remember that the front shocks originally hooked on to the front frame hoop I removed. My plan is to rebuild that hoop a little differently and have the shocks mount to the front of it instead of on the side like before. Since my front spring perch will be height adjustable, I intend to put 3 or 4 holes for each upper shock mount as well. Just for an idea how the shock angle will work out I set the cut off frame hoop back on. That way I can see roughly where they'll sit.
On the rear I'm thinking I might weld the ends of some bent Model A radius rods onto the crossmember for an upper mount. The shocks will sit something like this.
Or I may decide to make them height adjustable as well.

 

Nice Jeremy! Looking really good.

 

My new steering worm shaft showed up. After cleaning the cosmoline off I soaked it in some citrus rust remover to clean a little surface rust off.

 

Was the citrus remover a commercial product, or something you mixed up from scratch?

 

I used evapo-rust. It's real gentle but works well. I think its citrus based. Ill have to look. Ive had a couple different ones but this works the best without being too aggressive. I've used it on transmission gears before too. It works super. It's slower than something like muratic acid but that has more risk of removing metal and causing embrittlement.

evapo-rust.com

 

@alchemy i use a citric acid (bought in powder form) and water for light rust removal and it works well. You can usually get it at a local food Co-op for real cheap. I put about 1/2 cup in about 3 gallons of water. You can mix weaker/stronger as you need. Warmth or sunlight makes it work a bit faster.

 

Progress is being made on the steering column. I have the pieces of the interior shaft cut to length. Next I have to cut the flats to make the shafts fit into the DD tube.

 

Does the original shaft have a hole down the middle? Most old Fords do. If so, are you worried there won't be enough strength after cutting the DD into it?

 

None of it is original Ford. Good point on that though. I considered using a piece of Ford for the top but decided the hole was too big. Upper piece is 1045 shafting, middle is Borgeson DD tube and bottom part is 39 Chevy which had a solid shaft. I think I will drill the upper with a very small hole just big enough to take a wire but nothing nearly as big as the Ford hole. They had almost a 3/8 hole. Here are some pics of the upper chunk. It'll be a light press into the tube.

 

Nice Jeremy! Looks neatly done.

 

Lower shaft is done. I have to do a little hand fitting to the tube but it should work well. I have 6 inches of DD that will fit the tube nicely and the. I relieved the rest a few thousands on each side so I if it ever needs to collapse it will move freely.

 

Upper column bearing. It's a sealed SKF.

 

Overkill on that upper bearing but very NICE! Love this thread.

 

Yes the bearing is overkill, the column I'm using has felt for the bearings, filled with grease. But it's British so what do you expect...

 

Sometimes overkill is just right!

 

Worked on the bottom shaft so it's a snug but smooth sliding fit.


Then I drilled the upper stub shaft for a horn wire and drove it into the tube. Drilled a hole thru them so I can tap it and put 10-32 button head screws in, one from each side.

 

More nice work. You're putting me to shame Jeremy. I only got 1 crossmember made today.

 

Decided to add a magnetic drain plug to my steering box casting before final assembly. I'm going to try running 140W GL3 gear oil in it. If that ends up leaking I'll switch to 00 grease. I have a modern lip seal on the sector shaft but the big threaded piece that holds the lower worm bearing may drip. There's no seal on those threads. I might try putting a light coat of rtv on those threads when I finish assemble/set the lower bearing clearance.

 

All of it is a great plan Buddy!

 

The stock Model A guys over on the Vintage Ford Forum are really proud of John Deere corn head grease. I read about it a bit some time ago. As I recall it's thick and semi-solid at rest, but soon as you move something through it it becomes fluid and flows around coating everything. The advantage is that it doesn't leak out the bottom of the gear box and fill up their headlight switch, plus I think it's EP rated.
If you're not familiar with the product it might be worth investigating.