My 32 sedan has cruedly split wishbones and I want to put a stock wishbone back in...but I didn't want to pay "32 prices" for one. I found these split 32 wishbones at a swapmeet for $10... and rounded up a free model A wishbone as a donor... and figured I could piece them together something like this... I started by cutting the discards off in the bandsaw... The tube size matched up real well... but the angles weren't so great... I made a template off of a stock 32 wishbone... ...and you can see the Model A piece needed the tubes brought in some, so I heated and bent them in until they matched the angle of the template. That helped things to line up and look like it might fit together... I didn't feel that just butt welding the tubes together would be strong enough, so I made up some 6" long 3/16" plate splines. The tubes taper front to rear...so the splines are a slight wedge shape. The mill was good for a quick trim of both plates in one pass... Cont...
I marked out the slots in the tubes... and opened them up with a cut-off wheel... Then they were ready to slide together... With all the the edges beveled, I started tacking... I had the axle pinned in place with perches, to make sure everything stayed lined up... Then finish welded... and cleaned it up... ...and there you have a $10 32 wishbone... ...or as a friend pointed out, at shop rate it would be an $800 wishbone...but who's counting? Neal
Damn sexy Neil! Now I have a request........can you go back and hammer out 8 or 10 more great tech threads?! You ALWAYS have an insightfull way of doing things.
The last '32 wishbone I saw sell at Pomona was $750. and it had a dent on one side. You did good saving the split one and using the Model A forging. Good job.
very good engineering, and very nice work. i guess the price of model "A" wishbones will take a jump now.
Good job. I had 2 sets that were split but never lost any length, and i was able to find 2 back sections that were cut from other deuce wishbones and saved em. JEFF
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