39 chevy

thinking of keeping the dropped straight axle in my 39 chevy sedan build. Anybody running one? How does it ride, and handle? I,m keeping the 261 six thats in it, have a saginaw 4 speed and 55 chey rear end, dos pipes and tres carberretors. Its an old Santa Ana cruiser.

 

the thing that screws up the ride on straight axle vehicles is offset wheels. they dont like them and it causes the car to be road crazy. stay with the factory offset on your front wheels.

 

This is true, but don't go nuts over it.
as long as SOME of the tire tread is still under the kingpin axis of rotation you're OK.

Important to not have (a lot of) shimmy is the tie rod ends need to be adjusted properly. If they are too tight the tires flexing "feed back" against each other especially on turns on uneven roads, and cause shimmy.
This is basically a compromise the makers found when flexing tire sidewalls became an issue.
If (way) too loose they can come apart.
I have a similar if not the same axle on my ("driiven daily" since '93) '40 GMC and my factory shop manual says to tighten the rod ends tight then back off between 1/2 to 1-1/2 turns and line up and install the retaining cotter pin.
I did mine too tight once and it was awful.

Go by the book on all the alignment specs and DON'T set it to FORD specs. It's a CHEVY!

And don't expect anyone in a typical alignment shop to know any of this.
You will have to do it yourself (actually easy) or tell them what you want done.

 

Good advise from DrJ. I ran one for many years on my '39, (dropped by More Drop), never had a problem. I converted the right steering arm to a "ford style" double eye and ran a corvette steering box with cross steer. Sometimes I wish I still had that set up.

J.