Rocky Jr's "The Burris Coupe" Build Thread

Jr, Have you set the car down and got up on the front end and jumped up and down with your dad to see how much travel those shocks have? I bet they don't move more than an inch. I wasn't being critical just making an observation. Good luck with your build. Keep at it.

 

i understand curb...and i appreciate the comments seriously...we should be ready to set the car back down soon...we're trying to get the stearing worked out then we'll get it back down on the ground.

We got some work done over the last couple of days...rear shocks and radius rods are tacked in now we're focused in on the stearing box and getting the column set.

I'll get some pix up soon.

 

happy new year everyone...just a couple quick updates.

Ok...so the rear radius rods are a set of split wishbones off of what i don't know...all he said was that there were "gonna cost me big time". We wanted to use the jaguruar bushings out of the cage so dad made some sleves on lathe to fit and weld into the bones we needed to cut a radius into the fat end with the mill seen here


The front were done with tie rod ends and bung welded in. You can see here how they attached to the frame on the forward end


and tacked to the lower control arms on the jag

 

We took a look at using the 64 comet box but it didn't want to go easily. After some head scratching I left for the day and dad found an f-100 steering box and a really nice tilt column which is also going to "cost me" and got this worked out.






I noticed the tilt action was a little wonky and found this piece of metal floating around in the column. This is a brand new column from flaming river i think so I guess we'll have to take it apart and figure out what's broken.

 

So dad got the car off the frame jig and back down on the ground while i was out goofing off on thursday.

The big question now is how well the front shock setup is going to serve us. The first thing i did was jump up and down on the front end. Seems like it will work. The front end is giving me about 5 or six inches of travel and the shocks had a couple inches of travel.

The rear wheels are just for mockup. I'm going to need to run a wide tire in the back with a deep backspace to help cover the jag hubs. It was either that or shorten the axles and control arms. I'm opting for the wider tires. So cheater slicks and radirs all around i think.









I had hoped against all logic that I'd be able to use the olds steering wheel but as i suspected it's much too deep. We have a white grant that will suffice.

Next up is getting the master cylinder mounted...i think

 

The reason behind the shock design concern is because a shock needs to be at less then a 30 degree angle. The more vertical, the more dampening effect it has. Only way that I know of around that is to install then on a bell crank which honestly I only see on radical race and show vehicles. The way you have them mounted it seems they would pivot on the bushings before they actually do what they are designed to do. I'd be finding a set of short shocks designed for a short suspension travel car (such as a hot rod) and getting them as close to vertical as you could

 

Great build Rock...Some damn good ideals I hope you dont mind me borrowing some of them.Good luck keep the updates coming
Bob

 

Nice build-up.

A friend had a F-R tilt column in his F100 and part of the internals broke off and nearly jammed up the steering while he was driving it. And when we were searching to see if this had occurred elsewhere we found someone else over here had had the same happen. I think they replaced it with a re-designed one, so maybe yours is an older one too?

 

That makes sense.

 

just don't borrow the bad ones

 

scary...lucky to have it break now i guess

 

Would some sort of collar around the shock body that limits the shocks abillity to swivel do anything to help? I understand that a more vertical shock works better, just trying to find a way to salvage the current setup.
I can't remember where but I know at some point in my life I've seen some airbag setups that used cantilevered arms to transfer the movement to a bag that was mounted inboard. I don't remember if the bags were still vertical or if they were arranged on their side. I do understand that the bags were used to suspend the trucks not to dampen them so maybe it wouldn't work, just throwing ideas out.

 

I understand the Cantilever thoughts, same thought process for a bell crank design...Since the mount would have to be redone anyways, its my opinion to just keep it simple and build a "traditional" more vertical shock mount. I try to use the "KISS" mentality. Just my 2 cents, sometimes it isnt even worth that much haha

 

I'm not married to the current configuration. I'm leaning more and more towards a more traditional setup the more we hash it out. This setup may prove even more problematic when we try to get our headlights set where we want. Sometime it pays to wonder the beaten path and sometimes you have to back track. Working through problems like this is all part of the fun.

The C&C's are always appreciated.