Personal choice mate. My general thoughts are if its gona look like a gasser it should have some go to back up the look.
Curious about the way the heims sit on top of the third member horizontally, rather than vertically like the frame end? I did it the same way on my build, and they work fine with the limited travel my car's axle has, but caught all sorts of hell here from HAMB members when I posted pics of my arrangement. Guess the same people haven't seen your build!
That pivot link is off a factory car. It looked like it would work so I got it, got a couple of heims, sat it all together and thought yeah. The heims have a spacer either side so there's lots of room for them to move throughout the full range of diff travel that my shocks allow. I've been around both speedway and offload race cars and they use heims horizontally in the steering systems, and the offload cars at least really give them a workout. I think they'll be ok here. I like double shear mounting too, and again this lends itself to that easily. Not sure about the high roll centre but apart from that I like the setup. This is my first ever chassis build though so its a steep learning curve.
Got a good deal on some in the box iron heads that used to be cast in NZ. These are 72cc 220 intake runner Protopline/Proaction heads that I think are now sold under the RHS banner. I want to run 1&7/8 primary pipes on the headers so have to use adaptor flanges along the lines of the Stahl ones. Being in Kiwiland it was more cost effective to start with a couple of locally cut blanks, so with those in hand I wished I had a mill, haha, but I dont so hand marked and Chinese drill press drilled they are. All the holes lined up so I'm happy... Also made a driveshaft loop which at the moment is floating but will need to be fixed within 6" of the front universal for NZ compliance... And bent a bit of flatbar into a flexplate shield. Still need to finish mounting this too....
Also got a steering box mocked up. Cross steer would have been my preferred option but side delivery just seemed a better fit with what ive already done. It's an early Ford Transit box and at the moment is temporarily on some 3mm plate but will be permanently mounted on 12mm plate slightly recessed into the chassis rail so the pitman arm can swing paralell to the centreline of the vehicle. It'll also need a universal joint to allow the steering column to be in the right place.
Just curious here, would this be the pivot link off a GM car possibly a Holden that is difficult to find and is thevery popular ie cheap handling upgrade that I have read about somwhere fairly recently?
Hey lookit John boy that dude's got an air compressor or something bolted on his engine! I like that. Nice welding too.
15 months since an update....I really am slow . Anyway, my focus is back on this project and I have achieved some things since I last posted . I was mocking up the steering when I was informed I'd have a lot less bumpsteer if I put the spring shackles at the opposite end to where the factory did. So I went from a roller to this...
The axle was mocked up with guards on to check wheel placement and then I started permanent mounting it. Caster was way out so I used this block at the rear of the spring and if needed I can fine tune with a wedge between the springs and axle. Couldn't find shackles with the right dimensions so made these ones..
Last pik shows lower steering arms and this is how they came about. Since they were going to be fabricated it was easy to get correct Ackerman. From there I drew these... I had two of them water jet cut then with my cheap drill press at home got fairly accurate.... Followed up with a tap And finally I had some one with a tapered reamer complete that part for me so I could use early Ford tie rod ends. Also got some tube tapped to link the two arms together.
I chose to use an early Ford Transit steering box which has been modified on both the input and out put sides. With the modified box mocked up I drew up the top steering arm then mocked up a wooden one to check it. That looked OK so was reproduced in steel
you do very nice work---i think you got snookered on the shackle location though based on other discussions on the hamb...
Beautiful workmanship! I've had as many straight axle cars with shackles in front as I've had in back. Have one of each now, and I don't notice any bump steer with either. As long as the drag link is very close to level the bump steer shouldn't be an issue.
Looking good Kez, one thing is those front shocks will work way better upright, now would be a good time to alter them.
Thanks guys. Looking at other parralel leaf sprung cars I wonder if I've done this shackle end swap unnecessarily? I'm sure I'll forget about the extra work though when I'm driving it
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