I've been rethinking my T's suspension. The car is a MAS bucket body sitting on a 2x3 frame. The front suspension is a 35 front axle with split wishbones suspended by quarter elliptic springs, the rear is(or was) a 62 Galaxie 9-inch also with quarter elliptic springs located by triangulated upper control arms. I've decided that I want rear wishbones in place of the control arms (I'll have to add a Panhard bar) to visually even out the front and rear. Now to my question, it's too darn cold and too much work to go to the junkyard, remove a pair of 'bones, split them and clean them up. I picked up some 1" I.D. tubing yesterday and I plan to cut the tubing in half lengthwise, leaving about 2" intact at one end. I then plan to spread the tubing apart and weld in pie-cut sections of steel flat. I'll mount them with a vertical uerethane bushing on each bone to the rear end. What does everyone think? Has anyone done this before? Any advice or pics would be appreciated. Thanks, Karl
Maybe I'm not grasping what you are wanting to do, but if youre wanting them to function like normal split wishbones, why do you want to put a bush at the axle end instead of solidly bolting them to a piece of platewelded to the axle with trackrod ends or a bush at the front to mount them to the chassis ? I can't see anything wrong with making bones. A friend in UK has hideous square tubing home-made bones. He's going to weld half tubing to the outside edge to slightly improve the "asthetics". Of course stock bones were meant to be used with closed drivelines and can bend or snap if subjected to too much stress. The bones you make would have to be heavier duty than stock. Maybe home-made ladder bars would be a better option.
[ QUOTE ] with quarter elliptic springs located by triangulated upper control arms. [/ QUOTE ] Split wishbones are just a differnt kind of ladder bar.They work fine on an I beam because it can twist.The rear end housing can't twist,so it creates a bind. Since you already have the upper arms in place,why not make your homemade split bones into trailing arms? A single horizontal bushing on the back would do it.So you end up with a triangulated 4 link,that looks similar to the front.And the torque is shared by 4 links instead of 2,so your less likely to break something..
You'll have a lot of time in making a set ofbones out of tubing. If you know where some are it would be much easier to go get them. If you don't have any you can get take your time welding the tubing. Do small areas and let it cool. Alternate, weld a little on one side then flip it and weld a little on the other side. If you try to weld it too fast it will warp and look more like a pretzel than a part you can use. AS far as using the bushing on both ends American Rodder did an article on it a month or two ago. It was on Lance's B400. Clark
Thanks for all the input. The reason I want to get rid of the upper control arms(using the 1/4 springs for lowers) is that I'm having a hell of a time fitting the gas tank, battery, and shocks under the turtle deck with the upper contol arms in place. The split bones would obviously go on the outside of the turtle deck, freeing up some room. As for the bushing on the axle end, I thought this would eliminate some stress on the axle housing. The bones need to be about 5 1/2 feet long, so I just thought it would be easier to make them the length I need than to find the right length. Plus the nearest yard that I coud get a set is about an hour and a half drive. With the holiday season, it would be hell to take a whole day to get them. Thanks for all the input, guys!! Karl
another thhing you have to watch out for is if you put to much power to your rearend your axle twists (axle wrap) and can bend the hell out of early ford rear wishbones, they arent made for that stress because they have a torque tube thruogh the center for strenght originaly, muy buddy used some but he gusseted them, I got a set of 40 rear wisbones that have been shortened i could measure them for you (thed be cheap) if you got a mas body are you around the twin cities?
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