I just purchased an orginal 38 deluxe coupe and i want to get it low but i dont want to cut anything I do not want to split the wishbone, if i put a dropped axle and mono spring will I have problems with the tires hitting the fenders while turning? I plan on running 5.60 x16s on the wide 5 wheels and 7.50s in the rear. Does any one have pictures and specs on 35-40 fords with unsplit wishbones that set low?
You won't have tire rubbing problems. A dropped axle, reversed eye spring, and dropped steering arms on the spindles and you'll be in business. I would steer you toward a multiple leaf spring with liner between the leaves, instead of a mono-leaf. The mono-leaf springs don't have the greatest reputation safety wise.
I used a Posies reversed eye spring on my 39 with 195x65x15 tires with a stock axle I have 8" at the chin. With the setup you propose the wishbone may hit the frame/ steering box on a hard bump, not sure about tires hitting.
The wishbone isn't a limiting factor in getting the car low. Wishbones get split to make room for larger engine/transmission combinations.If you are keeping the flathead, there is probably no reason to split the bone.
As long as you stick with early Ford wheels you should be fine as far as rubbing goes. A friend and I did the same to his '35 Pheaton about three years ago and I have to say that I LOVED the ride qualities of the mono leaf springs. That had to be the best riding early Ford I have ever driven.
here is a pic of the car, i think a set of big and little white walls and setting in the weeds will make it look a lot better thanks for the advise,
If you find and use a 35 or 36 wishbone you can then use a 32 to 36 axle. 32 to 36 axle can be dropped a lot more than the 37 to 41 axle that fits your 38 wishbone.
Thats what i thought about doing but then i looked at kingpin width and did not think i would gain anything...
Also, if you are not splitting the bones, only axles that will fit is a Magnum, or have someone drop your original. You can alsomhave you steeing arm dropped as well. That way you have all stock old parts....pretty cool if you ask me.
Young rodder if you set it low with the spring and do not split the bones you run into problems with the bones banging the frame. One thing that has been done to overcome the problem is to split the bones but only move the mounts farther out on the cross member without making them run outside the frame rails. Yes you still have split bones but it is not the same as running them outside the frame rails. I am sure that you know that on the '37 up running the bones on the outside of the frame rails causes interference with the Bone and the tire. One of the things that shops like Valley Customs (and back yard builders as well) did when they lowered a boat fender is reshape the fender well openings. This did two things one it made it look like the car had not been lowered as much as it has and the other is that it gave more turning room for the tires. Part of the idea behind this was to alter the car without it being obvious what the alteration was. Now just to muddy things up in your mind a bit another thing that the old time custom builders did was raise the fenders while lowering the car. I have heard it called "the crouching Tiger Look"(hotrodhon) A real old timmy custom touch. If you only do as little as possible to maintain turning radius it is subtle and another one of those what "what the hell has he done" thing. I only threw that last paragraph in to make you wonder about your original design ideas and not to help you with a damned thing.
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