Before I go and spend a few hours making a set of mounts I figured I post some shots of the templates for approval before wasting my fabrication time if they arent strong enough. Templates are 100% size. Plan is to weld plate 1 onto the truck arm, then make plate 2 with some saddles to weld to the rear. Then plate 1 bolts to plate 2. All made out of 1/4", I'd use 3/8" but i dont have any. Everyone OK with the design and the 1/4"?
Whoops...How did that happen....Don`t forget to gusset those mounts, and pay attention to the forward ( hopefully double shear) mounts for these...check to make sure there is no binding in the system, and make the longest panhard bar you can fit in the car...
I ordered bushings today for the front that fit in 1-1/2" tubing and use a 1/2" bolt. I plan on making double sheer mount tabs for the front out of 1/4". Was a pretty good deal i tought, at ebay store "fabrication needs", he sells the bushing with the inner sleeve, and an outersleeve to weld to for $10 each, and free shipping. I got the urethane ones for a little more flex.
The truck arms are pretty sharply triangulated so I will try to run it without a panhard first to see how it handles.
What provision is there in your design that will let the rear end pivot---as in when one wheel drops into a pothole while the other one doesn't?---None that I can see. When you weld it up solid like that, if one wheel moves up or down, the other one has to follow that motion exactly. Of course, in real life that doesn't happen, so all those twisting forces are going to pe transmitted thru your axle tubes and rear end housing.-----Not Good.
With it being triangulated, using larger bushings up front, and it being an I beam it should have enough twist I thought. At least more than the people running split bones or ladder bars in the rear, or at least as much as a stock 60-66 c10. Think it will flex enough that the 1/4" mounts will be fine? I was hoping Clark would chime in since he built a bunch of these.....paging Clark.....
You will need a panhard bar. Period. There is nothing to keep the rearend from pivoting an the front mounts otherwise. Think of this as a triangle, one side of the triangle is the rearend and the arms as the other sides. The points at where the arms and the rearend intersect are fixed and won't flex. The point where the arms are bolted to the crossmember are flexible allowing the entire triangle to rotate on that axis. The panhard is there to locate the rear and keep it from moving side to side. Not tryin to get down on you, just would hate to see your ride get wrecked. Eric
heres a pretty good pic of what your doing, the pads on the dif housing are like a regular spring perch and are welded on, but do angle inward at the front, the arms are then bolted on useing a large u-bolt one per side, as you can see in the pic.
I have a similar setup under my '34 pickup made from 3" ibeam, triangulated with big poly bushings up front, and a 48 ford front transverse spring out back. It works quite well so far, got about 8k on it since I switched from parallel leafs. Just a note on the panhard bar, I had nice, long, adjustable one on this setup for the first few thousand miles. I found that no matter how I adjusted it, it somehow interfered with the travel and actually made the handling worse. I pulled it and never looked back. No sway, no goofiness, etc... Just my 2cents, keep in mind, your results may vary... I guess my point is that you may not necessarily need a pnhard with a transverse rear spring, although it's usually reccomended. Good luck, have fun!
I wont have the transverse leaf spring to help me locate since I am running coils off of the arms, so I may make a rod later. Every one OK with the mounts before I go make them?
Hey Budd, in the picture you just posted does it look as if they used 2 left side arms. The right side arm appears to angle out and the left side arm appears to angle inward. Could be an optical illusion but it doesn't look right. Eric
As was said earlier, put some gussets in so the plate doesn't fold up. It looks like it should work. And I believe 1/4" plate should be heavy enough. Eric
its an illusion, i have had these on trucks and have had to replace them, the mounting pads are angled in at the front and down a little as well, i took an arm off a 64 gmc 1/2 ton and put it on a 72 chevy 3/4 ton and it fit exactly the same, the 3/4 ton did have a piece of 1/8" plate welded to the top for most of its length, i guess it was to make it stronger for the 3/4 ton.
You NEED a Panhard rod. With the arms focused and the mounting pads welded to the housing, it will feel kinda stable...but will eventually fail due to the extreme force cornering and pot holes etc will apply to it. Think about an original Ford wishbone suspension. Take the spring off and it will move all over the place because of the single ball mounting of the trans connection. Do you really think simply using two flexy mounts a foot apart is gonna make that much difference when the car is moving and forces are at work upon it? Just add the Panhard while its easy and stop skipping steps...OK? Don't want the answer to the age old question..."Why did the Chicken(Scratch) cross the road?" to be... "Because he didn't add a Panhard bar and lost control on Deadmans turn...!"
If you're not using a transverse rear spring, you'll definitely need a panhard... Mount's look good, build 'em beefy and gusset them well.
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