There were quite a few stories written about an early west coast racing track roadster set up with chain drive, and rubber suspension...do a search, and it will come up...it ran quite well.
I doubt that anyone would build that well thought out of a project and have it be undriveable. Note the tail and stop liight Could have trailing arms with cross torsion bars similar to rear engined Volkswagens.
That's an interesting layout... 'Traditional' chain drive (that is, two chains driving a dead-axle at the sides) depends on having a long enough chain that it can accommodate the twist of suspension motion...but that must be a record. I'm sure the stub axles must have something besides the spring providing location, a trailing arm or something, unless it's got a solid rear dead axle doglegged under the flathead. In looking back at the first pic I guess that big black area under the engine in the original pic must be the center webbing of the axle. I was, briefly, earlier trying to think how one might do a VW-type torsion-bar trailing arm with an axle shaft coaxial to the torsion bar to drive a chain sprocket. Didn't come up with anything obvious.
Do a search on Steve Grimes. The car has been discussed here quite a few times and there's probably more detailed pics.
Grimes got back to me with a detail pic on the chain drive RPU. The rear suspension is basically a giant swing arm that pivots up under the car, on the same axis as the front drive sprockets. It does use QE leafs, but I didn't see any shocks on the pic he sent. The drives are connected by a crossmember that runs under the front (rear?) of the engine. Pretty neat... Not anything I'd want to hang hard corners in, but seems perfectly suitable for a cruiser.
Re post # 56, ran a 750/1200 class mini sprint. With 8 inches of travel, four bar mounted axle/50 tooth aluminum sprocket would twist and bounce violently in the rough dirt. Ran the chain quite tight, side plates on the rear, guide in the front tensioner on the bottom. Could run a chain and rear sprocket all season, lube between heats, check for binds, adjust for stretch, very tough, reliable and strong. Could bend a inch and a half diameter 4130 axle or a motor mount when it broke. The ideas similar to Rooties post worked great until a chain failed,tearing up frame mounts and shafts,and making stretch adjustments a PIA. Read somewhere that a chain drive has less power loss and is more efficient than a ring and pinion. True ?
Those weren't just chain-drive but chain-transmission, right? Four chains on varying-ratio sprocket pairs, no diff?
JEM,these images are from Hardy hall Restorations.They show the bevel box with the sliding dog clutches,then the other image shows the complete assembly.
Some pictures of the subsequent Frazer Nash system: It should not be hard to incorporate a differential if a system of concentric rear axles were used; and one can just go on adding speeds, as one has almost the entire rear track to work with. And apparently the quality of the the shift action has to be felt to be believed.
Alright then...sounds like you have all the "expert" advice that you need ( or want ). The only way to know for sure if it is achievable is to get your ass out in the garage and build this thing already! and we want pictures of the build! I love this sort of well thought out, because I can, type of engineering project. As opposed to the no thought involved, because I have no grasp of basic principles, type of cobbled together crap projects. Get started already!
ehhhhm, think for a moment about materials and qc of those old chains. 1000 hp drag bikes still put power thru a modern single-row 630 o-ring or x-ring chain without failure. when was the last you heard of a motorcyclist decapitated by his own chain? as long as the chain is a good name like RK or Tsubaki and is maintained, there are no issues with a chain drive car.
Yeahhhh. I ended up buying another project and now I have two to complete. We all know how that is!! Believe me! I want to get to it! I'm thinking of again, working off a truck chassis with the pressure oiled 235, or perhaps (most likely) a model A running chassis. Or hell I could just build a flat box frame and position everything right where I want it. Who knows. I will get it it some day, though!! Or ideally, my dream is an American laFrance chain drive speedster XD! Vince
Here's the V-8 J.A.P. powered G-N along with a less romantic version of G-N.Curborough 2013 G.L. pics
The Jalopy Journal
