"Bone Stock" NEW 1932 Ford Wishbones !

Are the broken cast pieces being talked about an investment casting?

I note that Rugers centerfire rifles that operate up in the 50,000#-65,000# + per square inch range have investment cast receivers.

The actual # per square inch may be higher because the rifle manufacturers use CUP (Copper Units of Pressure) which translates close to PSI, but is not exactly the same.

 

I had always assumed this was true, until I was reading the Tony Thacker Deuce book. Sounds to me like Henry abhorred true engineering and plans, and flew by the seat of his pants to get the parts done on time. Maybe his "engineers" were the saving grace that made the parts strong enough, but it doesn't seem as if it was any fault of Henry's.

 

Ford was the state of the art in metallurgy in the thirties...made his own steel to proprietary formulas with a special variety for each critical use. Look on your pitman arm...there's a little ground flat spot with a dimple from its final QC hardness check.
When the "A" was introduced, Ford had his cost accounters in a frenzy because he tried to use his forgings prctically everywhere; early A's had forged throttle levers, fender brackets, etc. Ford never went near GM's practices of making mechanical parts as cheaply as possible...the corporate ideologies were polar opposites.

 

Are rear axle housings forged? What about the yokes for the u-joints?

 

I think axle housings are assemblies...ends with spring hangers are forged, I think main tubes are likely rolled from steel plate and electrically welded...but don't know for sure. There is a lot of info an fabrication tech in Ford Industries books and bits of old films and pamphlets on the Model A sites. Banjos at one time were actually rolled from heavy C-section steel and welded up to pearing parts! I would assume U joint yokes would be forged.

 

Maybe he made his parts so overbuilt so he wouldn't need to depend on engineers? The Thacker book (I haven't finished it yet) tells about one supervisor (engineer?) trying to convince Henry to replace some forgings with stampings. Henry made him sit on the parts, near the stress point, to prove the strength comparison. "Stamping Joe" proved they would work, so Henry finally gave in. I site the progression of fender/running board mounts from forged to stamped during the A years as an example.

In the same book Thacker sites the continuous flow of junk blocks during the development of the V8, right up until they start getting some "good" results, then they put them into production six months late. But as we all know, EVERY flathead contains a few cracks. Maybe Henry should have overbuilt them a bit more? Seat of his pants.

Now, don't take me as some Chevy lover. I will always have Ford blue running through my veins. But I do have to realize (chuckle) how some of our favorite cars came to be.

 

the reason for the problems with the V8 blocks was the casting process. it was state of the art at the time. no other company let alone automaker had the ability to cast the one piece block he did. It was revolutionary. teething problems were due to new technology.

 

I was thinking more about the pumpkins on later rear ends, like 10-12 bolt GM, and Ford 9"(some of those were nodular iron, which would be cast, no?).

 

I saw in the Deuce documentary that at first, only one out of one hundred blocks were usable.

 

yes, it would be. which is the reason the housing has more support webs than a ducks foot.

 

On the casting process, one of the biggest issues was keeping the multiple cores in place during the pour, I believe. If you look in there, the exhausts were a complex cavity within the complex cavity of the water jacket...cores had to be supported within cores within cores, then they had to stay in place as a couple hundred pounds of liquid iron washed into them. SIA in its article on the Caddy one-piece V8 introduced in 1936 quoted a Cadillac engineer as saying that the casting wasn't possible...even though Ford had been making a somewhat more convoluted one for four years at the time! A year later, Ford essentially invented the cast crank, getting better performance at lower cost at a time when Chevy had a hard time keeping its forged cranks going.

 

"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."
-- HL Mencken.

 

Hello Team

Once again bring DATA and don't play arm chair Engineer when you have a Liberal Arts degree. Don't condem the hardwork and engineering of a product without facts. Here are the facts regarding 17-4 stainless investment castings.

17-4 stainless
tensile strength 185 ksi
yield strength 100-160 ksi
elongation 5-12 %
hardness 28-45 HRC

PS: ARP high performance connecting rod bolts have about 175 KSI tensile strength.

Mike Gibbons
Sugar Land, Texas
[email protected]
http://home.houston.rr.com/mikegibbons/
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken

 

Thats great, but how about the parts that are not stainless?
If you read the whole thing thats what had been asked.

 

Hello Doc
Send me the metalurgical information of the part and I'll be able to comment in a knowlegeable manner.
PS: I think we have guessed that the "Bone Stock" NEW 1932 Ford Wishbones are more than adequate from a mechanical properties perspective I'm going to personally test them and report back!
Mike Gibbons
Sugar Land, Texas
[email protected]
http://home.houston.rr.com/mikegibbons/
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken

 

Beautifull products!! A lot of work went into creating them.

I wouldn't sell my perfect bones from my car painted in '56
for less than $700. I removed them about 20 years ago.

 

I think the body framework being wood, is the reason for less Chevrolets. Compare an early Chev frame to a comparable Ford, there is no doubt which one was built cheap(Ford).Many famous competition cars were built on the superior Chev chassis such as "the Chrisman dragster.

 

I read this whole tread and then looked at the product and got confused as I thought the discussion was mainly about investment cast steel compared to forged steel...

The product page (at least now) states that the ball joint and the yokes are investment cast in 17/4 stainless steel, and only the tubes/arms are made from either 304 stainless steel or cold rolled steel.

So my question is, how does investment cast 17/4 stainless steel compare to the original forged steel Ford part?

Thanks,
-kg

 

thats cool, it in vegas